High Plains Drifter.
When your imagination packed it's bags and left for South America, Bolivia is where it sent you the postcards from. Rasin-faced old peasant women wrapped multi-layered skirts, sporting a natty bowler and bridging the fashion divide between a Russian doll and a transvestite Mr Ben as they trudge the (dust, anyone? dust) streets and fields, bent double under a hundred weight of cargo (or snot-nosed offspring) wrapped in acid-striped blankets. A country where Nature dropped a couple of microdots and came down to find She'd created the Altiplano where flamingoes feed in high-altitude frozen desert oasis, cactus sprout from former coral reefs in a blinding white lake of salt and canyon walls defy gravity in the wild west style badlands that served as a second home to Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. A country witness to the rise and fall of fabulous pre-Hispanic, virgin sacrificing, mother Earth worshipping civilisations etc yawn.
And the home of the world's highest capital and biggest misnomer. La Paz is anything but peaceful. Stepping from my hostel I found myself verbally accosted by a woman half falling out of a minibus and babbling in tounges. After this had occured twelve times in as many seconds I realised I was witness not to the local window-lickers outing but the public transport system. Nose to tail micros clog the steep streets, manned by rent-a-crones sporting enough gold dentistry to put Flava Flav to shame and spitting destinations fast enough to make the wickidest gangsta rapper look like a tired old cruise ship crooner. The only thing that stops the traffic is the daily demonstration ("What do we want?", "Better roads/health/pensions/rights for llamas/delete as appropriate", "When do we want it?", "NOW").
Take My Breath Away.
In a country where it's possible to go from snow covered peaks to the steaming jungle of the Amazon Basin in a day (I'm telling you now) trekking at 5000 meters offers a unique opportunity to get in touch with your inner child. Not the one that wonders wide-eyed at the joys of nature but the one that shits itself, projectile vomits and wakes up wanting it's mummy five times a night. Altitude sickness does not, as I had romanticaly imagined, involve lying wanly sipping brandy on a bed of llama skins but rather an unwelcome flash forward to wheezing old age while a techno rave pulses in your head and your stomache helpfully decides you'll travel lighter without this morning's breakfast. When I got my head from between my knees however, the view was incredible.
Next: A long held dream made real. The Lost City Of Thousand Tourists calls.
I made up the bit about shitting myself by the way. Or did I...?
When your imagination packed it's bags and left for South America, Bolivia is where it sent you the postcards from. Rasin-faced old peasant women wrapped multi-layered skirts, sporting a natty bowler and bridging the fashion divide between a Russian doll and a transvestite Mr Ben as they trudge the (dust, anyone? dust) streets and fields, bent double under a hundred weight of cargo (or snot-nosed offspring) wrapped in acid-striped blankets. A country where Nature dropped a couple of microdots and came down to find She'd created the Altiplano where flamingoes feed in high-altitude frozen desert oasis, cactus sprout from former coral reefs in a blinding white lake of salt and canyon walls defy gravity in the wild west style badlands that served as a second home to Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. A country witness to the rise and fall of fabulous pre-Hispanic, virgin sacrificing, mother Earth worshipping civilisations etc yawn.
And the home of the world's highest capital and biggest misnomer. La Paz is anything but peaceful. Stepping from my hostel I found myself verbally accosted by a woman half falling out of a minibus and babbling in tounges. After this had occured twelve times in as many seconds I realised I was witness not to the local window-lickers outing but the public transport system. Nose to tail micros clog the steep streets, manned by rent-a-crones sporting enough gold dentistry to put Flava Flav to shame and spitting destinations fast enough to make the wickidest gangsta rapper look like a tired old cruise ship crooner. The only thing that stops the traffic is the daily demonstration ("What do we want?", "Better roads/health/pensions/rights for llamas/delete as appropriate", "When do we want it?", "NOW").
Take My Breath Away.
In a country where it's possible to go from snow covered peaks to the steaming jungle of the Amazon Basin in a day (I'm telling you now) trekking at 5000 meters offers a unique opportunity to get in touch with your inner child. Not the one that wonders wide-eyed at the joys of nature but the one that shits itself, projectile vomits and wakes up wanting it's mummy five times a night. Altitude sickness does not, as I had romanticaly imagined, involve lying wanly sipping brandy on a bed of llama skins but rather an unwelcome flash forward to wheezing old age while a techno rave pulses in your head and your stomache helpfully decides you'll travel lighter without this morning's breakfast. When I got my head from between my knees however, the view was incredible.
Next: A long held dream made real. The Lost City Of Thousand Tourists calls.
I made up the bit about shitting myself by the way. Or did I...?
posted by Kate at 2:54 PM
1 Comments:
Bueno, trato de entenderlo, pero sólo llego al 75%. Ya sabes, esos jodidos anglosajones de la Pérfida Albion, el Imperio y todo eso...
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