Nov 2006

Hey everyone, I´ve been uninterested in the internet for a while now so and I`m still having a good time so I apologize for getting behind on the emailing. I promise that when I get to Sucre, a stopover on the way to Potosí, I will spend 4 or 10 hours on the internet and catch up with everyone. For now, you must be contented with another brief blog entry.

While waiting for the bus to Vallegrande there was another girl waiting to go as well, we got talking and decided to travel together. We tried to flag down a truck but the bus arrived before a truck would stop. Vallegrande is only a few hours from Samaipata though so it was a painless ride. We arrived in Vallegrande, a dusty dry semi-touristy cowboy town, and walked around looking for a decent hostel. At the recommendation of a couple artisans on the street who Hyojung (as my travelling companion is called; she`s Korean) knew from an earlier town, we dropped our bags at Alojamiento Pinto for 12bs a night (very very cheap). It`s a bit dirty and run down, but has tons of plants all over the place and is very laid back. We visited the Cultural centre for information on all the Che Guevara and went to the Che Guevara museum, but then we got talking to the Brazilian artisans and didn`t have time for anything else.

We ended up hanging out with the Brazilians for a while yesterday and had a wonderful time. They were selling their jewellery and purses on the street, so we just took a seat on the ground next to them and talked and had a good time. They speak mostly Portugese, which if spoken slowly is sort of like Spanish, and the Korean girl speaks better Spanish than me, so between us all we could communicate. The artisan life is hard, but attractive. They buy their materials in big cities or find them in nature somewhere and travel around the continent selling just enough to get buy and move on to the next place. But despite the usual lack of money, they meet so many people along the way and see so many wonderful places. They were very friendly and open and I hope I run into them again along the way.

Today Hyojung and I visited the airport strip where Che Guevara and his comrades were buried after their execution. When we got there the gate was locked and a sign instructed us to go to town a book a tour, but since we didn`t want to pay for it we crept around the barbed wire fence until we saw a hole big enough to crawl through.

I don`t think I can say much about it now cuz I haven`t thought it out or made a journal entry. Stepping into the mausoleum though, in which there was a the hole in the ground with commemorative gravestones for Che and his mates, affected me a lot. Hyojung and I were chattering away just before the entrance, but when we stepped in and saw the gravestones we ceased talking and just listened to the wind creeping through the doorways; it was a solemn moment and we both just stood there for a while, looking down. I came out of it very sad, I could feel the energy there.

Across the road was the other spot where the mass graves of Che`s other comrades used to be buried. It was a nice memorium but it didn`t affect me as much.

After lunch we went to the lavenderia (laundry room) in the hospital where Che`s body was laid and exposed to the press and public. The original room and laundry sinks are there, covered in grafitti, sort of love notes to Che telling the world how respected he was and how we`ll never forget him. It was kind of bizarre to touch the spot on the basin where his lifeless head once lay, and to imagine the whole thing happening when the current surroundings are so different.

Tomorrow we get a ride to La Higuera, where he was actually killed. I may stay there for a night or two before I come back to Vallegrande. It all depends on how I feel at the time.

Oh dear I haven`t any desire to go on the net the past couple days. I`ve been active for the first half of the day, doing wonderful things and having adventures, and when I get back to the hostel I just want to relax on the open patio and drink fruit juice and read my Che biography and try to write my screenplay.

The horse ride as fabulous. It was just me and the two friends from Britain, plus a 13-year old Bolivian boy as our guide. We travelled up El Meson, a road that winds up the mountain out of Samaipata and which eventually turns into a small trail through steep and rough ground, through thick bush, over streams, along a craggy rocky mountain path with a drop on one side... Going up was slower but safer, going down was a little scary sometimes as the horses had to be very careful not to slip on the smooth rock on the steep bits. Overall it was a wonderful adventure and I`m so happy I went. The boy, Juan Manuel, talked nonstop Spanish and had the biggest smile on his face as he showed us some flowers, helped guide the sometimes stubborn horses, and told us stories that I could only half understand. He was a bundle of energy, riding bareback, doing tricks on his horse, and lassoing the foal that accompanied us goodheartedly.

Yesterday, the day after the horse adventure, I went with Kitty, a Belgian woman, to los cascades ¨Las Cueves¨, some waterfalls nearby. There are 3 of them, all about 10 minutes apart, and were so spectacular. The last one was the most beautiful, like paradise with soft sand perfect for puddleducking and not a tourist in sight because we went so early in the morning. To the side of the 3rd waterfall was a path up the mountain, so we trekked about an hour up for a grand view of the area, and came back down to the river for lunch. On the way back we just missed the small bus, so we hitched a ride with a cargo truck passing by and got back to town in just half an hour. On the way we stopped on the side of the road for some fruit and the driver offered me a peach. It was a good day.

Today I`ve just been relaxing, trying to write. Tomorrow I head to Vallegrande and I will try to write more there.

I hope all is well at home! If anyone has the time, I`d love to receive some headlines or interesting bits of news news from Canada. It`s sometimes hard to keep in touch with what`s going on in the rest of the world here. Thanks and chao!

Ok if I don`t talk about the park a bit more I`m never going to do it as I`ll be caught up in other stuff. I have to be briefish though cuz the internet here is pricey and I have a few things I need to do.

I loved my cat Wayra and I felt guilty leaving her. I wanted to leave a day or two earlier than I did, actually, but I promised Noemi, a long-term volunteer who does some of the organizing, that if someone showed up who could take over Wayra for me I would stay a bit longer to help train him or her. Anais, a girl from France, showed up Sunday, so I stayed on a bit more and though I wanted to leave I felt better about it knowing my puma had someone to work with her.

The whole time I was there I was torn between thinking we weren`t doing enough for the animals and thinking they have much better lives than the ones they came from. They do indeed have better lives, but they still live in cages. Theoretically, with the right organization and the right amount of volunteers, the park is a very good idea: the animals have someone (ideally long-term) working with them everyday, keeping them company, playing with them, taking them for dayly walks and sometimes swims in the river, and helping to make them as happy as possible given that most of them can`t be released into the wild. In practice, however, because of poor resources, poor organization, and a severe lack of volunteers especially in the rainy season, this doesn`t happen: if the volunteers are spread too thin the animals can only be walked occasionally, don`t get as much attention as they need, and become frustrated at being in their cages too much.

On the other hand, all the animals have come from bad places. Some are orphaned after poachers kill the parents, some were kept as pets, abused, kept in small cages with their legs tied...So the lives they have now are better, no doubt about it. I just wish their was something more we could do. Juan Carlos and the rest of the permanent volunteers have their hearts in the right places, but they have a long way to go before the bad feelings I have about the place go away.

Even after 4 days away from the park I think I would go back and help again, but I couldn`t do it for long. They need to focus more on the long term, on perhaps improving the living conditions to attract more long-term volunteers, and to do more advertising to help with fundraising and awareness.

I have left much unsaid of course, but that is generally how I feel. The park has the potential to be a wonderful and productive place, but without more money it will only just survive as it is surviving now.

Some of the people I met were wonderful, the burn burn burn people I love so much and I hope we keep in touch. And it`s because of them, as much as the animals, that I have fond memories of the place. I think projects like this are extremely important and though I have problems with it I look forward to working with others, to see how they run and how effective they are in their purpose.

For now though I am happy to be travelling again. I reached Samaipata last night in a local micro bus. It`s a small town, lush because it`s so near the jungle, dirt roads, few tourists, a gem for sure. It`s very laid back, muy tranquile. I`m staying in a hostel called Andoriña which is such a cozy warm fuzzy art sort of place. The couple who run it are Dutch and Bolivian and are very helpful, full of information and advice. I think I could stay here a while but since there is no bank I have to make sure my money holds out for Vallegrande and area.

Tomorrow a British couple and I are going to rent horses for the day!

For many reasons that I will get into later, perhaps not in this session, I decided not to stay the full 3 weeks at the park. Overall I had a good experience there, but I was ready to leave so yesterday I got a ride with Juan Carlos, the founder, back to Santa Cruz, and MAN was it a crazy ride. Here is what I wrote along the way:

¨6.37pm - Tuesday 07 November 2006

¨What a country! When you come to Bolivia, you have to get used to Bolivian time: SLOW. I delayed leaving the park a bit today because Juan Carlos and the 2 film guys offered me a ride to Santa Cruz after lunch. (A couple Argentine media guys came to film the animals for 2 days to help with fundraising and advertising.)

¨Lunch came late of course, at 1.30pm or so, and we didn`t end up leaving until 3pm. A little way down the road we fell behind a big transport truckt hat hit a loro (type of bird), so we stopped on the side of the street to rescue it. It was an injured wing so we have it with us now, with plans to take it to a temporary home in Santa Cruz.

¨Then maybe an hour or two into the drive -- Oh wait. Before the bird incident we were in Guarayos looking for gasolina. We didn`t find any at the first 4 places we stopped, but were successful at the fifth place, an out-of-the-way little store with no pump so Juan Carlos had to use a tube to suck the gas from the container to the tank.

¨So after we picked up the bird we stopped at another gas station (they had no gas) with a small cafe. We had tea, coffee, some bread, and ice cream.

¨Twenty minutes after leaving the cafe we found another gas pump on the road and could finally fill up all the way, but when we tried to start the truck again it stalled, and stalled again.

¨We are only now heading on the road again after a mechanic looked at the engine and gave us some oil. I`m writing in the dark now so I have to stop. Vamos once again!¨

¨8.28pm

¨After taking a test run with the truck the smell was too bad and burning and we kept stalling so we returned to the mechanic... or maybe it`s a different mechanic. I`m beginning to lose track.

¨Two of my companions and I are now waiting at another gas station/restaurant while Juan Carlos and the other dude drive to yet another mechanic to try to get it fixed. If my big backpack weren`t in the truck still I`d consider hitching a ride from one of the big trucks passing through here.

¨As it stands though, it doesn`t look like we`ll make it to Santa Cruz tonight and will probably have to find a hostel somewhere nearby.

¨Bolivia is all about delays, it seems; they are something one must expect and accept to enjoy travelling here. It`s kind of amusing how disfunctional this country is.¨

That`s all I had light for, but there is definitely more. We waited at that station for about an hour, but eventually the truck came back with the mechanic`s assurance that it would get us the extra 3 hours or so to Santa Cruz. So we headed off again, trying not to stall the vehicle. It didn`t sound or smell very good the whole time, and the floor behind the driver`s seat got pretty freakin hot, so we had to stop for coffee again to give it a chance to cool down. Before we left Juan Carlos pointed out a monkey kept in a small cage in the backyard (illegal but not enforced) and convinced the woman behind the counter to let the park come and rescue it, give it a better life. A day`s work is never done! That done though, I was mighty tired and grumbly so I was glad to get on the road again, and this time we made it all the way to Santa Cruz.

Once we were downtown Santa Cruz, there was a pop and a sputter and the engine gave way again. So we were stuck in the middle of the street with no more battery power (and other problems I´m sure) and had to clamber out and push it into a car park for the night. At this point it was about 2.30am so we grabbed our bags, walked slowly to a hostel, and crashed for the night, glad to be there safely even if the truck wasn`t sound. Melissa and I shared a room together and looked after the bird, and Juan Carlos and the film guys took another room to sort some other stuff out.

So now that it`s morning I`m doing my own thing but I know Juan Carlos and the others are dealing with the truck. By the end of the whole thing I had no patience left, but I know I`ll look back on it as an adventure.

More to come later. Reflections on the park etc.