Dynamite dinosaurs

01 de Octubre

T Rex was very welcoming for tourists

La Paz kept us for a while. Well not exactly the city, but the protesting miners.

The hard workers below ground in Bolivia have been striking on a regular basis since silver was discovered way centuries ago. They haven’t quite managed the mines well recently, ever since the Government booted out foreigners and let anyone in Bolivia have a go. Essentially, anyone can now rock up with a headlight and a shovel and lay claim, and traditional unionism is not required. This, you would think would think might foster more enthusiasm and output, as we know that union workers will down tools due to an itchy ball sack, but not being in the union has thrown a pick axe into the works, and workers have hit the streets in protest, blocking off roads with piles of rocks, and confronting each other in the Capital, an event which culminated in violence last week, when one side threw a stick of dynamite at the other, killing one man. Of course this escalated the anger for both parties, and revenge was promised, however to this moment, only more strikes and laziness have been the norm. It’s costing this poor little country millions of Bolivianos a day in lost production, but so far, the only solution to the issues President Evo Morales has come up with, is to ban the throwing of dynamite during protests or industrial action. Serious. It’s fine to hurl some sticks of TNT any other time you desire; your sisters wedding, grocery shopping or your dentist visit, just not when you are unhappy about your job

Zebras and toilet paper covered trees are customary in La Paz

La Paz, much cleaner from a distance

We spent a week in La Paz, which is quite a smelly, run down, high altitude city. We had a nice, comfortable hotel room, and there are some excellent, cheap restaurants and pubs around town to keep us occupied, but the day would always start with us checking the news and asking locals what the situation was. The usual replies would be “No, you cant go that way” or “You can go that way, but you will die”, so it was groundhog day again and again. Eventually, a resolution in enmities occurred, or the miners were just too drunk to put stones on the road, allowing us to leave La Paz, and head to the countryside.

But not before we had an excellent and entertaining evening attending local wrestling in La Paz. Cholitas wrestling is all the kitsch and desperation of Mexican Lucha Libre fighting, Bolivian style. Men and women, in homemade costumes, from Spiderman to the Flash, to Bolivian farm worker to Skeletor, a cat, a clown, and a God knows what in a G String. We were lucky enough to score front row seats, which were exciting at the time, until competitors were thrown over the railings into our laps or lumps of wood used to strike opponents splintered into our eye sockets. Although the highlights of the evening weren’t actually the wrestlers themselves, but just to watch the reactions and enthusiasm from the crowds, who took the events incredibly seriously as a sport, and were consistently leaning over barriers towards the ring, either to shout encouragement or abuse, or to hurl popcorn or fruit at the bad guys, or girls. They really got into this, and the event happens every Sunday night, and is a tradition amongst local families to attend and have a good old-fashioned night out. With simulated violence, generally against women, which is concerning indeed.

Punishment for Bolivian prisoners would always occur in the ring.

The drunk zebra had to be forcibly removed from the bar

After having disposed of He-Man, Batman was to be Skeletors next victim

Krusty was mad when his dinner wasn't on the table by the time he got home

Krusty had complained about his wife's cooking one too many times

There was a clear loser in Colgate's Show us Your Smile competition

Organisers searched frantically for mops and brooms for the women

Toro Toro National Park is located about six hours south east of Cochabamba, which itself is four hours from La Paz. Toro Toro is an unremarkable town, more like a village, of mud brick adobe houses, still under construction, with dirt roads, and only one year into electricity. Donkeys, pigs, goats and sheep rule the roost here, and driving or even walking through town can be a congested effort due to the livestock on the paths. The roads in are a conglomerate of dust, slate and large pebbles, and the odd fallen cliff top boulder. It’s the sort of place where you would expect to see Fred and Barney pushing their rock wheeled cars around down, although the Flintstone housing seems a bit more advanced than what these guys have. Many tourists don’t know about this, and if they do, they rarely visit due to the difficulty and effort to get here. Which is probably why we came. That, and the fact that it contains some of the best, oldest, and easily accessible dinosaur and pre historic fossils in the world to date. There are hundreds of superbly preserved footprints adorning rocks and cliff faces. The site town is also home to many caves and stalactite and stalagmite formations, and massive, deep canyons and gorges that rival what the rest of the world has to offer. As it was dry season, we weren’t privy to what the area offers in terms of waterfalls and cascades, but were lucky to be able to enter the underground caves and explore the full array of artefacts, including bones and marine fossils, some up to 70-80 million years old. Just a tad older than some of the locals there.

We booked the trip, expecting a guide that might be able to inform us in English. We were out of luck, or perhaps in it, as we had to make do with Reddy, the crazy local Toro Torian, Bolivia’s closest thing to Jim Carrey. He couldn’t speak English, but he could sing, and dance. At every opportunity, atop a rock or perched on a jagged cliff, he would belt out a local tune, in fine voice too I might add, and shuffle to his own beat. We enjoyed his enthusiasm and entertainment, and were happy with his company, but when he stuck a cassette in the tape deck of the van of local singers, trying to give us further example of the traditional music in Toro Toro, we had to put a stop to it. It sounded like the squealing of a cat stuck in a banjo struggling to escape and the resultant chords. But Reddy sand and bopped along, between activities in the park. Even the driver, Juan Pablo, hated it, and on the last day when Reddy had forgotten his mix tape by leaving it in the van, Juan Pablo drove through town, stopped to a random passer-by, threw the tape in their hands, and said,” Give this to Reddy. Please just get it out of my sight”. The poor old fellow on the side of the road didn’t know who Reddy was.

BHP were using backpackers in their latest campaigns

Reddy, the all singing, all dancing nut job

The blind tourist would never find her way out of the cave

Fossilised dinosaur shit. Now used as discus apparatus.

The dinosaur was weary of what to wear in her hair for her trip to San Francisco

After a few days of paleontological adventure, it was time to head back to Cochabamba, and sort out onward plans. The ride home was interesting, a busted tyre, unsurprisingly on those roads, held us up a bit. Although it wasn’t as frightening as the journey in a few days before, where the memory of dynamite revisited us, when the rear wheel exploded (not pleasant when the edge of the cliff into a deep ravine is only a metre away), but alas, it was only a rock strike on the axle. JP stopped in the town of Tarata to get the tyre repaired, at a shop run by a ten-year-old kid. He knew all there was to know about vulcanisation and puncture repairs, and in a short while he had the spare ready to go. He was a busy little boy, answering phones, taking payments and setting to work his two assistants, slightly younger than he was. What’s child labour when children are ordering it?

Tarata is also famous for the biggest dickhead in world politics, at least in Bolivia. Mariano Melgarejo was President of the country from the mid 1860’s, and wasn’t too noteworthy of anything, except his passion for horses. In fact, he swapped a huge slice of what was then Bolivian territory, the Pantanal, home to one of the richest and diverse ecosystems and wildlife tributaries on the planet, for a white horse. He swapped this with Brazil, who now control the land and the millions and millions of dollars in income generated by tourism on an annual basis. There is a statue of him in the middle of town, and locals shake their heads each day as they pass the shattered buildings and crumbled streets, as they beg for food. The statue is of him on a horse. A white one.

The angry pterodactyl would swallow the pigs whole.

Dinosaur footprints. Or just holes in the ground.

We returned to Cochabamba, and the madness of the bus terminal, hoping to get to Sucre the same night. Unfortunately the buses were all full, so we stayed a night, had a few beers, expecting a day of action the next day before our night bus further south. As is with most of Latin America, Sunday is the day you would find more excitement in town if you were dead. The only things that are open are the flies of the hobos occupying the park benches in the city parks. So after miraculously finding a restaurant that served decent food, we sat in the main square for hours sipping bottled water, staring at the cathedral and making fun of the deformed pigeons who were too lame to win that donated bread crumb.

The night took us toward Sucre, on a bus that should have been put to bed in the seventies. We were used to fancy first class Peruvian buses, all reclining seats and silver service, but instead we got the remnants of a tank that came off second best from a roadside IED. To add to the tin can discomfort, the road was bumpy and unsealed for approximately 300km, so getting some shuteye was as easy as shaving with broken glass. To add to this joy, in the middle of the aisles lay bodies, either because the bus company had oversold the trip or they had suffocated from inhaling the dust six months before and the bastards just hadn’t noticed they were there. And who could forget the cockroaches eyeing off our snacks the minute the packaging crinkled, and descending over Kylies shoulder to grab a piece. Or the stray rusted shards of metal threatening to puncture your skin should the bus make a sudden stop. This is the real reason tetanus shots are advisable before travelling. But the coup de grace was to happen at the rest stop, where the drivers of various companies would gather round to share a cup of tea…laced with a South American sized shot of rum.

You don’t realise that you are in the third world until you are actually in it.

After revisiting Catholic roots to pray for our lives, the rocky road ended and we were in Sucre, an absolute charming delight of Bolivia. It’s the official Capital of the country, although the Government corrupts from La Paz. It’s young and funky, with many, many bars and restaurants, and Universities, and people who like to have a good time. The city is immaculately pretty, full of cathedrals and buildings made of whitewashed stone. Neon lights are banned here, and all businesses and homes in the city radius have to recoat their whitewash annually. The hostel we are staying in should be a museum. It’s an absolutely stunning relic, almost like a small town. We shall enjoy our stay here, and report accordingly soon.

After his drug disgrace, Lance Armstrong was back to the BMX track