Conversations
Posted October 8th 2009 by PaPa
"Massage, amigo?"
"No."
"Maybe later, amigo?"
"No."
"Tomorrow, amigo?"
"No."
"Next week, amigo? Next month? Next year?"
"No."
"Eres mal amigo!"
"Hey, you want coke?"
"No."
"Is good cocaine, man."
"No."
"Is nice, man. Why you no want cocaine?"
"Sunglasses, amigo? Un sol."
"I'm wearing sunglasses."
"But these are Ray Bans!"
"No."
Pictures and Shit
Posted October 8th 2009 by PaPaCheck the last page of the img page on this very site. Apologies for poor compression - I have no photoshop.
Why Do Flowers Die
Posted October 4th 2009 by PaPa
Well, I just got back from my 3 day tour of the Salar de Uyuni and the Bolivian southwest. The tour consisted of myself, a half English, half French Australian guy, a Polish couple on their honeymoon, a Czech couple and our non-English speaking driver slash guide in a Toyota Land Cruiser.
The tour departed at 10:30 Bolivian time (i.e. at 11:30 GMT -5) and we hit the salt flats, which are difficult to convey in words other than saying that they are big, flat and white. We spent the night at a hotel made of salt at the edge of the flats, which was actually quite a pleasant establishment. After dinner we settled down for a chat, which consisted largely of the Czech bloke talking about how terrible socialism was. The Polish guy seemed to be less impassioned on the subject, his response to the Czech's claim that under socialism the waiting period for a car in Czechoslovakia was five years being to grin widely and say "In Poland, was three years." After the ladies went to bed the men settled down to a game of poker, using coca leaves as chips.
The title of this post refers to one of the songs on the cassette that the driver played on repeat for the entire fucking second day, which when not in the car was spent at various rock formations and large blue lagoons populated by pink flamingoes. The hotel for the second night was significantly less comfortable, to the extent that rather than use the toilet most people went and pissed in the sub-zero temperatures outside.
Some twat on another tour decided to break out his acoustic guitar after dinner, and after opening with 'Hallelujah' went on to every other overplayed track you can think of, well into the night even after every one else was trying to get some fucking sleep.
The next morning, rising at a quarter to five in still sub-zero temperatures, we sallied forth to some hot springs where we ate breakfast. Lacking the necessary clothing for full immersion I settled for sitting with my feet in the wonderfully hot water and smoking a cigarette. The last day was mostly concerned with getting back to Uyuni, involving a great deal of fast driving along rough tracks that pounded my buttocks into ground beef.
You may have noticed that I haven't really described any of the things I saw on the tour. Pics in like 3 weeks or something.
Living on a Prayer
Posted September 30th 2009 by PaPa
I am reporting to you from an internet gaming cafe in Potosi. The kid next to me is currently dueling outside Orgrimmar. He appears to be in the guild "Shattered Chaps" which I think we can all agree is the best guild name ever.
Just about to leave Potosi, where I went on a tour of the local mines at Cerro Rico - Rich Mountain. I have to admit that I pussied out halfway through (that is an hour in to be fair) when the next phase involved crawling on our hands and knees through a tiny little tunnel. Thanks, but no thanks. Either way it was an interesting experience - the tour guide even set off some explosives for us, and I have a picture of myself holding a bomb with a lit fuse next to my testicles.
Heading out to Uyuni today, from where I will get on a tour of the salt flats and the national park to the south which features both red and turquoise lakes. Ciao for now.
Bitches Don't Know
Posted September 20th 2009 by PaPa
In most places that I've been to so far, you have to go somewhere to get to the market district. In La Paz, it sometimes seems as though the entire city is a market, with different areas selling AV extension cables, delicious spicy sausage sandwiches and poppy seed cake, as well as llama foetuses for use in indigineous healing spells. The shoelace on my left shoe broke, and although I tried numerous shoe shops, none of which sold laces for some reason, I eventually found some at a streetside stall whose wares otherwise consisted of crisps, chocolate and mobile phones.
All this makes La Paz quite a pleasant place to walk around in - or at least it would if it wasn't about 3500m above sea level and built in a steep valley, making any excursion highly exhausting. I was intending to head out to the nearby ruins of Tihuanaco this afternoon, but I was just too tired from walking around the city this morning.
Getting here was an adventure in itself - the route from Puno in Peru involved crossing Lke Titicaca, which the passengers did in a motorboat whilst the coach was taken across on an enormous flatbed wooden ferry. I'm heading to a place called Rurrenbaque tomorrow, which is an 18-20 hour coach ride down from the mountains and into the Amazon, which I have not yet visited but figured I should hit up pretty soon before the Bolivian summer (read: rains) get going.
