Caving... and some civil engineering on the side

This past weekend, I went for an adventure in Torotoro with seven other volunteers. Adventure is what we got. Torotoro is a town, and a National Park by the same name,  about 100 miles (as the crow flies) from Cochabamba. The park is known for its caves, canyons, and dinosaur footprints.  Tourists are delivered there on a bright yellow bus painted with dinosaurs. The one way ticket costs 20Bs (just under $3) Locals ride this bus too, and there must be some price differential, because we all got seats, but many of the Bolivians sit in the aisles, on the steps, or even on the dashboard of the bus. To cover the distance between Cochabamba and Torotoro, the big yellow dinosaur bus takes about 6 hours, on a good day. So I'm told.

Our bus there had two runners (small boys that stand the whole ride by the door and jump out to move the biggest landslides that block the road, then jump back on while the bus is still moving), we only got one flat tire from side-swiping a landslide, and we made the trip in just under 7 hours.



We arrived in the pouring rain and awoke the next morning at a trashy hostel in the pouring rain and generally had an overall negative attitude about the prospects of the weekend.  Then we tracked down our guide, Mario, at his house. Mario is the short, silent type and has been guiding in the region since either 1969 or 1979 (I'm still having trouble with numbers in Spanish).  He took us past dinosaur tracks and into the caves. Because of the rain, the water thundering through the caverns was deafening, and all the surfaces were slippery. Mario worked with only one climbing rope and a propane fueled flame on the front of his helmet. We climbed and descended and squeezed through tiny tunnels. I am certain that insurance companies in the United States wouldn't even let you look at the cave entrance, but, for a nominal fee, Mario adeptly guided us underground for hours. It was incredible. The most impressive thing about Mario, short of keeping us alive, was that while we slithered and squeezed through water and mud and dirt, Mario never got a speck of dirt on the dress pants and white shirt that he guides in.

















On the second day, Mario showed us the canyons and waterfalls that decorate Torotoro park. We hiked 1000 steps (or so) to the base of the canyon, drank in the views and climbed on boulders. Again, the water-carved landscape was marvelous.

When it was time to go home, we paid another 20Bs for the dinosaur bus and boarded at 3pm. We stopped for a bunch of Sunday market traffic in the nearby villages. After 2 hours of driving, we got stuck in the first river we came to. (Oh, of course I forgot to mention that the road just goes through rivers.) The drop from the road into the current was decent sized, and the rear end of the bus got hung up. The people in the truck behind us got out and started to dig. They got annoyed at me for taking pictures, so I got out to help them. I waded through the river to the back of the bus, and with the shovel, crowbar, and pick ax (apparently standard issue gear for Bolivian buses), we tried to work the back end free. A mini traffic jam formed behind us including 2 trucks and a herd of goats. Our bus driver did not want to get wet, so he went back and forth through the aisle of the bus and climbed in and out of the back window, using his runner's back as a step ladder.

Meanwhile, someone decided that the water was the problem and convinced the rest of my gringo group to build a dam to reroute the river. I don't know what is funnier: that someone thought we could change the course of a raging current and that it would somehow help the situation; or, that they actually convinced us to try. So, I moved up river to join my group of friends in hauling big rocks into the middle of the stream. A couple small boys from the bus came to help, and asked us to pay them for their services. We didn't. Meanwhile, the number of other passengers seemed to somehow be slowly diminishing. It got dark.

After about four hours of futile attempts to move the bus or the river, another bus arrived and pulled us free. We climbed on board and rounded the first bend in the road to discover where the other passengers had gone: to the bar in the town a mere 200 yards up the road. We had been too busy altering the landscape to look for the nearest place to buy a beer.

We drove for another hour in the dark, all drifting to sleep after our backbreaking dam building work. At about 10pm, we came to another river. Our bus stopped. The engine was shut off. Not a good sign. In the middle of the river (which was, in this case, the road) was a large truck, buried up to its axles in mud and rock, effectively blocking all traffic. Our busdriver decided to just go to sleep until morning and laid down in the bus' baggage compartment.

Another bus, from Cochabamba, arrived on the other side of the river. Yucca and Sheylynn, my only companions that were awake, tried to convince the drivers to trade passengers and go back from whence they came. Everyone wins, and we all get home tonight, right? Our driver said 'no.'

Not accepting of the 'sleep it off' solution to river crossing, us three girls, along with two other passengers from our bus decided to build a ramp down the one meter river bank, bypassing the truck. It was a big project to attempt, let alone with simple tools (remember: shovel, pick ax, & crowbar), limited workers, and pitch darkness, but at least it wasn't raining.

We started carrying rocks, shoveling, and breaking shale off a nearby cliff face. The rest of the men from the buses, along with our drivers, stood laughing at us. But after about a half hour, you could see the machismo kick in from watching girls do manual labor. One at a time, we got the manpower we needed.

At around 1am, the bus on the other side managed to reposition itself to pull the truck out of the river. They managed to free it, but only to wedge it again, this time right in front of our ramp. But, after a few more attempts, the truck was pulled to the opposite bank just as we completed our engineering feat.

The bus from the other side crossed via the old road, but our driver didn't want to attempt it, for fear of getting stuck like the truck. He went for the ramp. It was bumpy, but operational. (ramp under the back wheels of the bus in this photo) A few men stayed outside and helped shove us through the river.

At 2am, we were across the river, just after 4am, we reached Cochabamba. I couldn't find my ticket to produce for collection upon de-boarding. I didn't feel bad about that. At 5am, I reached my bed. Today, my arms are sore. It's either from caving, or dam building, or road engineering... but, enough about 'vacationing', it's time to go back to school building.

AU! RO! RA!

They are serious about strikes around here. Well, kind of serious. The transport strike lasted 4 days last week. Then all the drivers worked for the weekend, because, come on, people have stuff to do. Then they worked Monday too. But by Tuesday, they seemed to remember that they had a really important cause to fight for and better get back to it.

So, here I am in Cochabamba: Transport Strike Week 2. I haven't been able to get out to the job site to work on the school, except for Monday (a.k.a. The Day the Strike Forgot), and then it was raining too hard to pour cement. I couldn't leave the city last weekend to go hiking because of blockades set up by the strikers. While this is all an interesting insight into the political and economic functions of Bolivia, it's pretty boring if you can't go anywhere, most stuff is closed, and you don't really like TV.

Luckily, the city soccer game fell on one of the days when the strike was on break. With a friend and her dad, I went to the stadium to root for Cochabamba's Aurora when they played Santa Cruz on Sunday.  I love going to sporting events in other countries. I enjoy sporting events in the US, and I love seeing the differences. There are always many.

For example: There is a big pet market outside the football stadium here in the morning before the game. People buy puppies out of crates stuffed full of puppies. While you are waiting to meet your friends for the game, men walk up to you, shove a cute puppy in your face, and offer to sell it to you for 100Bs. What do people do with the dogs they buy out on the pavement? They bring them into the game, of course! The stands are full of not only cheering fans, but also very small dogs, sleeping, chasing up and down the stairs, or just looking confused (I think, if I were a market dog, I would be in the latter group).

Another marked difference to American sporting events is that there is no alcohol allowed in the stadium. They don't sell any, and you can't bring it with you. The only drink available is pop, and it is sold out of two-liter bottles from which the vendors pour you a cup. The gap left by the prohibition on alcohol is filled with a free-for-all on fireworks. I was building a pretty strong argument for banning alcohol on the grounds of safety until I saw the fireworks. They should give you a free fire extinguisher with your pre-game puppy purchase. 

One of the fans near us had a bull horn. I'm not sure if this is not-allowed in the States, or you just couldn't get away with it. The guy screamed profanities at the refs, advice to the coaches, or just chanted "AU-RO-RA!" louder than anyone else. The people in the seats directly in front of him probably had a very entertaining game, but still can't hear anything.

I've heard how excited some countries get about soccer, but I was still surprised to see that the refs had to be escorted on and off the field by police outfitted in full riot gear.

There was one similarity to American sports that I picked out. You know those guys that bring their radios to baseball games so they can listen to the game while they are watching it and make sure they don't miss anything? Well, they are at Bolivian football games too. We were surrounded by guys listening to the game on the radio, though I'm not sure they could hear anything over the bull horn.

I'm sure there's a great "bread and circuses" lesson in the fact that the city was cheering a Cochabamba win at a soccer game in the middle of an economy-crippling protest, but in the midst of the shouting, firecrackers, and puppies, who can be sure?

Could someone call me a death cab?

Right now the chauffers (taxi and bus drivers) of Cochabamba are on strike. I haven't been to work in two days because I have no way to get there. They raised the price of intra-city rides from 1.50Bs to 2Bs, which is quite a price hike. The people refused to pay or ride and now the drivers are refusing to drive.  Economic unrest aside, this gives me a minute to reflect on how long it has taken me to figure out the little bit I know about the transport system in this town.

The spiderweb maps of London and New York subway systems have nothing on Cochabamba. First of all, there is no map; no secret decoder ring; no signs. Public transport is an “insider” thing. Rumor is that there is a book that lists the routes, but I have never seen one, and you can bet that I have looked. You basically have 4 options in public transport here:

:

Micro: Ironically named, the Micro is the largest vehicle offered in the city. They are all painted obnoxious colors, as pictured. The inside is usually decorated similarly, and it is nearly enough to induce a seizure.Due to the seizure risk¨, and to the fact that I have no idea where any micros go, I never ride one unaccompanied by a local.  

 

Trufi: A trufi is basically a minivan that can pack in more people than you would ever imagine. I think I counted 18 once. Yes, in one of these. They drive a route indicated vaguely by the construction paper sign in their window. To get any of these bus-type things to stop, you have to step into ther street and hail them like you would a cab. If you want to disembark, you just shout "Next corner!" or "right here!" to the driver. The people paying good money for public transport will not walk an extra 50 feet, so there is a decent chance that a trufi will stop 4 or 5 times in one block.

  Taxi-Trufi: This "hybred" runs on similar priciples to the trufi, but is in car form. They also indicate their routes in construction paper on the dashboard. I take a taxi-trufi to work each morning. Early on, I reasoned that it would be great to get the front seat. I based this reasoning on lessons ingrained from childhood games of "Shotgun." When I waved a taxi-trufi to a stop, the front seat was open and I hopped in. In a half block, another passenger waved the trufi down and they shoved in next to me. I was pressed up against the driver and needed to self-levitate to stay off the car´s gearshift. Everytime we slammed on the breaks (which is constantly in Bolivia), my left thigh shoved the car into neutral. The driver would then have to put the car back in drive before proceeding. I sit in the back now.

Taxi: We're left with what seems like a normal form of transport the world over. However, what separates taxis from regular old cars in Cochabamba is just stickers. These stickers are the keys to the kingdom. Everyone, it seems, has a friend of a friend that has been mugged, raped or murdered in a "fake taxi."  What counts as a "real taxi" is widely debated. Taxis will have one or more of the following stickers: a "taxi" sticker in the windshield, a sticker of the license plate number on the fender, and/or a sticker on the back door of anything, from a company name/phone number to Spiderman. Most people agree that any car with two or more stickers is a "legitimate" taxi. These stickers are commonly sold in local hardware stores for reasonable prices.

Once you´ve flagged down a cab and gotten in without being stabbed or rufi-ed, you have to negotiate price. It does´t matter if you called a "radio taxi" company and they sent a cab to you, or if you flagged one down in the street, you will have to negotiate. There are no meters and no set fairs. The distance, the weather, your accent, and the drivers mood greatly affect what you will pay, but, that said, the final number really is anyone´s guess, and, surprisingly, stickers are not accepted for payment. 

I lived in DC when the cabs were un-metered and operated on a "Zone System." You needed a Phd and at least 6 months in the city to figure out how to use and manipulate the fares of said system, but it could be done. The taxi drivers of Cochabamba prefer to stay cloaked in mystery. And, right now, these mystery men can charge whatever they like, as the rest of the city goes into Day 3 of a transport strike.

How is my Spanish coming?

Well, I'm glad you asked.

Yesterday, I was complaining that I could not think of words in Spanish because my 'onion' wasn't working right. The Spanish words for 'onion' and 'brain' both start with "CE." The similarities end abruptly there. I suppose it's a personal victory that I understood every word when my host sister laughingly told everyone at lunch today about my latest linguistic slip up.
I am holding my own at about 75% of the conversations around the lunch table. I even talk a bit. This is a great change from Weeks 1 & 2 when I just swung my head around the conversation like I was trying to follow a ping pong match.
It's a blessing that I am learning Spanish amongst people that love food, because this is a topic I can relate on. My host brother and I spend evenings cruising the streets for foods made from ridiculous parts of the cow and then slathered in spicy sauces. Meanwhile, he helps me practice directions between street stalls  in Spanish and I quiz him on Instrument Flight Rules, as he is studying to be a commercial pilot. (Aviation is a topic about which I can discourse almost as fluently as about food.)
My host mom helps me with vocab by explaining what is in everything she cooks and telling me which town in Bolivia each particular dish originated in. She's quite the gastronomic historian.
This learning style requires a certain amount of faith. I think one of the reasons these people who love food are so patient with me is that they actually respect the fact that I will eat almost anything I am told. Reheated intestines off a dirty griddle on a street corner? I'll try it, but bring on the peanut sauce. Crumble up cheese and stir it into my hot chocolate? Well, I like cheese, and I like chocolate... 
These 'feeders' have proved themselves trustworthy in the food and language departments. So an extra lesson has been learned: A person can get a decent language education for the price of a pack of Pepto Bismal and few extra pounds.

Hay Lluvia.

Nobody felt great, and it was pouring down rain as we all made our way to the bus station in Cochabamba on Friday morning. The city floods nearly instantaneously, and none of the taxis have defrost. This was how, after getting my jeans soaked flagging down a cab, when we drove through a large puddle, a wave of street-water came in through the cracked window straight at my face and open mouth. No better way to start a weekend in the country than contracting cholera.

 

On the four-hour bus ride to Oruro, multiple men got on the bus and yelled 30-45 minute sales pitches at the trapped passengers. One of them was selling an elixir that can make your hair grow, clean blood from carpet, earn at least 8% interest for investments, and cure AIDS. One tube was only 10 Bolivianos. Not one of us bought any. We were too busy watching Jackie Chan movies on the bus TV.

In Oruro, we connected to a 7-hour train to Uyuni. I got stuck in a car by myself, directly behind the engine, thus full of diesel fumes. I shared a seat with a woman  and her 7-year-old son—apparently trains don’t have the same “children over 2 must have their own seat” rule that planes do.

The hostel in Uyuni lost our reservation.  Such an event is a mild inconvenience for a group of 14 Sustainable Bolivia volunteers arriving at 11pm.

The next morning, three of us shopped out the various tour hawkers on the streets in the pouring rain. Dozens of companies sell virtually the same three-day tour of the salt flats and surrounding areas. Our main priority was that our whole group not be crammed into just two 4WD vehicles. We reached a deal with “Expediciones Lipez.”  Shortly after taking our money, Mr. Lipez directed the 14 of us to split into two groups of 7 and climb into 2 vehicles. The third vehicle parked out front would be full of other tourists and join our group on the tour. Three adults in the backseat of an SUV would be something we would have plenty of time analyze the discomforts of. 

“The Others” consisted of 2 Russians that pretended to speak no English or Spanish and strolled into everyone’s scenic photos (I maintain that they were spies); 2 Canadians in their 60s that talked a lot; and an American neuro-scientist/mountaineer.  This crew shared their vehicle with our guide.

We paid extra to have an “English-Speaking guide.”  Through a few teeth, using decent English, he introduced himself as “Roberto DiNero” or “Llama.” I called him ‘Fancy Pants’: for three days he wore orange camouflage.  On Day Two, he stopped speaking English. Each vehicle had a Spanish-speaking driver. These drivers formed a union and waged a little three-day war with the guide, refusing to drive to tour sites and refusing to wake up at the scheduled times.

 

The altitudes on the trip ranged between 4000 and 5000 meters (13,000-16,000feet).  It was fairly cold. Most of us were clad in locally purchased wool adorned with 2-dimensional llamas.

So appointed, we bumped and splashed through spectacular desert scenery. There were marvelous rock formations and multi-colored lagoons.  We saw thousands of flamingos and possibly more llamas. We ate llama. We did not eat flamingo.  On the second day, we visited stinky, belching, sulphuric geysers. It was here that Fancy Pants pulled down his pants and squatted over the geyser steam. When we asked what the hell he was doing, butt-naked in belching clay,  he said, “It’s good for osteoporosis.”  We soaked the image out of our mind in thermal springs nearby, before continuing on to more scenery.

On the final day, after a 4:30am wake up call, we drove to the salt flats. It had been raining for days, and a shallow layer of water covered the miles and miles of white salt. This created a perfect, seemingly infinite mirror, and thunderheads reflected back at the sky. It was one of the most spectacular places I have ever seen. Ever. When I look out my window at home, I see glaciers and mountains. I fly airplanes over some of the most remote wilderness in the world. And there I was, ankle deep in saltwater, staring at something I cannot believe I had never heard of before coming to Bolivia, because it could be used worldwide to define natural beauty.

The train for home was scheduled to leave at 1:22am. After midnight, the train car was parked in front of the station and we all climbed aboard. As we waited for departure, tired from a long day on the road, we drifted to sleep. At 6am, we awoke, one by one, to discover that we hadn’t moved. We all climbed off the train back onto the Uyuni platform. The only worker in sight told us, when asked why the train had not departed, “Hay Lluvia.”  ‘There is rain’ doesn’t really seem like a sufficient explanation for a 7-hour delay of a 7-hour ride, but apparently, in Uyuni, that’s how it goes.


Halfway through the ride to Oruro, one of the train conductors came through our car with a trash bag, politely collecting all the rubbish that people who are stuck in a train car for 14 hours produce. We all looked at eachother pleasantly surprised. This was the first time we had seen trash collection of any form in Bolivia. We also had the privilege of being in the caboose, and thus watched as the conductor carefully tied the full bag of trash after making his way through the full train, then walking to the back door, unlatched it, and chucked the bag out the door. It tumbled off the tracks and into the desert.

We finally arrived in Oruro and caught a connecting bus at 4:30pm.  Two hours later, in the middle of a Jackie Chan movie, the bus broke down. We were in the mountains, 2 hours from Cochabamba, and would have to wait for a rescue bus to arrive.   We had a bottle of rum, perfect for such an occasion.

I walked in the door to my house close to midnight. My host brother asked why I was so late. I was too tired to remember any useful Spanish to explain my awesome weekend, and the glories of transit in Bolivia. “Hay Lluvia.” I replied.  It’s only evidence of cultural mystery that he seemed to understand exactly what I meant. 

Checking in on that ´helping out´goal...

 I´m helping to build a school. Well, actually, we´re adding on to an existing school. I´m working in tandem with the orgnizations Mano a Mano and Sustainable Bolivia. Mano a Mano builds schools and clinics all over Bolivia, the country that has the highest dropout rate in South America, especially among girls, because many kids have a  4 hour commute to school. Mano a Mano makes it their mission to build schools (and clinics) that are excessible to remote places. They built a school in the village of Apote, outside of Cochabamba, years ago, and attendance rates have gone up so much, they need to add on. We are at the foundation level of what will, in 4 months, be 12 new classrooms.
I have spent months staring at Mexican contruction sites wondering what they could possibly be building out of a bunch of randomly cobbled together wood. Now, I am randomly cobbling wood eveyday. The construction process is much slower when you don´t have proper lumber. You just use what´s there. That means finding old ladders and pulling the nails out of them one by one. Or carrying tree trunks to the work site. You make the size piece you need. You make the plumes. It looks like a mess. There is order, but it certainly doesn´t come together like a shopping list at Home Depot.
The other volunteer from Sustainable Bolivia that I am working with is French guy named Bruce. Our common langauge is Spanish. Our boss, a Bolivian named Renee, is about 5 feet tall, works in rubber sandals, and climbs around the worksite like a monkey. His boss is a fat guy, also in sandals, that chews coca constantly and has the final word on every leveling question.
Bruce and I spend a lot of time painfully constructing sentences the other one doesn´t understand. There is a lot of ´No Entiendo´and a lot of laughter. Laughter must be good for something, even on a building site.  Renee either thinks its funny or annoying that we don´t understand eachother and barely understand him. I´m leaning towards the latter.
We are raising and leveling rebar columns and the project is visibly coming along, which is rewarding. It is as safe as you would imagine a worksite where most of the workers wear rubber sandals and are climbing ten feet into the air on homemade cobbled structures over uneven gravel pits. But so far, the biggest injury is sunburn.