Interesting things I saw
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| Alejandra’s father kept lots of birds. This parrot is trying to find an opportunity to chomp off my nose. I am not kidding. |
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| Raul introduced me to a
new animal: capibaras! They look like giant guinea pigs. |
The pomello juice was so good that it deserves its own entry. It tastes like mild grapefruit juice (I love grapefruits) and being fresh squeezed was simply marvelous. I drank so much that that the memory of the flavor is burned in my mind. Just thinking about it brings back the marvelous flavor! Mmmm!
We saw an officer in the Bolivian navy. What, you say, Bolivia has been landlocked ever since Chile attacked them in the late 1870s during a national holiday and because they could not be troubled to respond until after the party was over, they lost the war? Yes, but for over a century they have maintained a navy because they hope that one day they will get their sea port back.
Most houses in Trinidad were made of bricks that looked like they were carelessly made, and then slapped together so carelessly that no one bothered to scrape off the excess mortar that squeezed out between the bricks. I suppose it is cheaper that way, but it looks really awful. Nicer places, though, had bricks sides that looked like brickwork in the U.S.
A transportation strike does not mean that the cab drivers are going on strike to protest low wages. It means that the government is shutting the entire city—you cannot travel on the streets unless you have a permit, even if you own your own vehicle—and you cannot open your shops. It was kind of weird to see the streets empty at 9 am as we walked to our sites. It reminded me of an apocalyptic movie where everyone in the city dies.
I never quite saw the point of the transportation strikes. The provinces of Beni and Santa Cruz had put up blockages preventing travel on the highways (well, two lane roads) that connected them. But Beni and Santa Cruz were both opposed to the Morales government. It seems like it would make more sense to blockade yourself from the non-Morales provinces, but permit trade with friends.
People in Trinidad mostly used motorcycles. People in Santa Cruz generally had cars. The streets, while a little chaotic by our standards, were pretty orderly. People stayed in their own lanes, for example.
The taxi cabs in Trinidad seemed like they often came from Japan. The odd thing is, they did not repaint them. We frequented a cab that was originally owned by a Japanese electric company, with the Japanese lettering and logo still there! Surprising that reading Japanese had a use in Bolivia...
The church had two doors: a metal one that was opened by the family that took care of the church, and a nice wooden one that was opened when church was in session. But if you were already on the inside, you still had to get a key to unlock the wooden door. It felt pretty secure, with high walls and a metal and thick wooden door. Except that if you were a thief, you’d just break the window... Theft must be particularly rampant. Almost every dwelling had some sort of a wall around it, even if it was only a low wall of sticks stuck in the dirt and tied together.
My favorite cultural experience was in the baño (toilet) at the church. This toilet was not flushing properly (no surprise), so I took the lid off the tank, and all these little frogs started jumping out! It was really funny because the water was about two inches from the top, but the frogs were only about an inch long, so they kept hopping out of the water, hitting the edge of the tank, and falling back in. I’m not sure which of us was more surprised to see the other...
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| Vegetable market in Trinidad |