Bolivia

While I was in bolivia I probably lost about about 10 pounds due to the fact the food is generally bad and there were very few times that at least one full head of hear did not end up in either my soup -which is one of the most common foods and contains grease, rice, maybe a veggie and the bone of an otherwise unedible peice of meat, having said that, Nate seemed to enjoy the soup but then again he was also very sick the entire time we traveled through Bolivia. I stuck to a diet of water, peanuts and oranges, which were the by far the best things to eat, while Nate continued to both impress and apall me with his desire to eat the soup and the local beef.

If argentinean beef is a caddillac then bolivian beef is the equvilent to a 1986 Oldsmobile celebrity- you know, the car that no celebrity would ever drive- and much like its car equivelant can be found being sold right on the pavement of the sidewalk -no kidding. They sell beef on blankets that sit just atop the sidewalk and right under passerby´s feet and the sun.

If thats not enough to take your appetite away the altitude certainly is. Bolivia contains the highest city, Potosi, the highest capitol, La Paz, and the highest highest major lake, Titticaca. For a week Nate and I remained above 12,000 feet ascending to 15,500 while in Potosi.

This altitude not only fueled my comapnion´s illness but it also seems responsible for the overall appearance of the people here. The average height is about 5¨4 and women are incredibly short. The gravity seems to push them down and stunt their growth. Travel guides may warn about the dangers of bolivia but this is hard to take serious, especially when I, standing just a tad over 5¨9, am a giant, but there was little oppurtunity to celebrate my new largeness.

As many of you may know, Nate and I have been traveling by bus exclusively and have gotten pretty accustomed to long uncomfortable rides. Then we got to bolivia where the roads make Camden, New Jersey streets look like they are paved in gold. The bumpiness of these rides was made far worsen by two factors. First, you could always count on their being at least 15-30 more people then seats, all of which bump into you -if you´re lucky enough to be on the aisle- at the same rate as the bus bumps over the unpaved road. Ppossibly even worse then the elbows or bolivian butts in your face is that they stop every 20 minutes only to let more poeple on who either beg you for money or try to sell you things like gum and lolipops, and in one rare instance the worst singing I have ever heard, which actually caused Nate and I to burst out into a rendition of ¨kick in the door¨ by Notorious BIG as well as a variety of songs from Jay Z´s blueprint 2 in an attempt to drown him out. He still asked us for money.

However there certainly were things that I greatly enjoyed in Bolivia. On our way to the Peruvian border we met and traveled with a couple of argentines who were very friendly and together we all went out to the markets and haggled with the different vendors for postcards and various other goods. These barter sessions might last for minutes and in the end save us anywhere from ten to 50 cents, but even still it was worth it and became a good way for me to practice my espanol as well as save enough money for some more peanuts.

One of our greatest adventures was biking 76 kilometers downhill on ¨the death road,¨ which is a single lane road that winds through the andes at ungodly heights and has sent 100´s of people to their deaths, but only one biker. The side of the road is literally cluttered with gravestones, yet this does not deter truckers from trying to set new records on their way down!