Happy New Year!

iNo, I´m not crazy. It was the first day of winter here and to the Quechua and Amyara (probably spelled that wrong) people, a new year. I was in Tinhuanacu for the famous winter solctice celebration there. And my verdict is: no vale la pena (not worth it).

The trip almost didn´t happen for us. We wanted to leave for La Paz (a 7 hour bus ride) at about 6, but the person who went to buy the tickets found out there was supposed to be a road blockade so there werent any buses leaving between 4:30 and 9:30, so we had tickets for the 4:30 bus. And at 4:25 we were sitting in traffic in a cab for a 4:30 bus. I was annoyed because my sister, and the other girls in the house, had been taking there sweet time getting ready to live the sister´s store. I know its Bolivia and things never go on time, but I thought that maybe we could have left a little sooner than about 4:20. And then each block took a few minutes to cross (have I mentioned how here, red lights are treated as stop signs, not red lights like in the US? People just go right on through if there´s no car coming from the other street). Part of the problem was just afternoon traffic, but it was also because there was a march taking up the whole street. People here seem to march a lot, like the road blockade. According to my sister, its usually ingiginous people, because they´re the ones living along the highway, and their protests aren´t really helpful in getting anything done (although Bolivia does have an idiginous president, the first in South America). Anyway, we were meeting people at the station who had already bought tickets for us. One is German, so I figured he´d be even more worried about the fact that we werent there than I was. But I asked my sister if he worked on German time or Bolivia time, and she said he was more Bolivian than she was! But at 4:25 he and his girlfriend were calling to ask where we were! Finally we got out a half block from the bus station and ran...and of course the bus wasn´t even loading yet, although it was past 4:30. We finally left at 4:47. The ride was pretty uneventful - only one time did the bus pull off the road and turn the motor off, which had us all worried and had other passengers yelling ¨lets go!¨´Fortunately maybe my bad bus karma is over, because after only a minute or two with the motor off, we got going again. And I only saw 2 cockroaches - my sister had taken the line to La Paz another time and there was a ¨rainfall of cockroaches!¨along with a breakdown, and waited 3 hours for the next bus. One of my favorite parts was seeing a "dont throw trash on the road" sign and maybe 20 meters later all kinds of trash on the road - it literally looked like someone had taken their kitchen wastebasket and dumped on the ground. After our food stop, they put on a horrible movie. My host sister knew what it was "Freddy versus Jason." Just as I was maybe starting to fall asleep, we arrived in La Paz. At midnight.

There was 10 of us, and my sister knew of a hostel downhill of the bus station, and someone else knew of one uphill...we stood on the side of the street debating what to do for about 10 minutes while about 15 taxis (ok, 5) stopped on the street waiting for us - a baunch of people with backpacks at midnight is usually a jackpot. But we decided to split up and all walk. The first two places we went didn´t have space, and I was a little perturbed at the absuridty of walking around La Paz at midnight looking for space for 10 people. But the next place, Inn of the Witches (right near the witch´s market, where they sell, among other things, llama fetuses for people to sacrifice when they open a new business). We just put our stuff down since we wanted to go right to the Solstice Festival. It turned out that the inn (I use the word losely, if you´re thinking hearty breakfasts in the morning, claw foot tubs and florar walls, you´re dead wrong. This is Bolivia and it costs $3 a night a person for a room with its own bath, cable TV and 4 beds) was right next to the Hard Rock Cafe. They actually have one in La Paz! As we waited outside for the rest of our group, about 10 Israelis left. Of course. Its getting to the point where whenever I see people with darker skin who aren´t speaking Spanish, I assume they´re Israeli. The inn is also around the corner from what I have dubbed "The Israelito (I think the Spanish word for Israeli, but I didn´t pay much attention to the lesson that day) street." The signs at practically every store from internet to hair salons to a dry cleaners have Hebrew.

At about 2 am we all got into a trufi to take us about an hour to Tihuanaco. To make a long story short, we got there at 3, the gates opened at 5, and we spent the time in between either in a restaurant, walking down the street with sleeping bags wrapped around us, or on the line to get in. When the gates didn´t open at 5, people were yelling for them to open, and when they finally did there was extensive pushing. I think Americans are often considered to live in a rude culture, but I just dont think that would have happened - people understand that it takes time to check tickets and let people in. Once inside (it was still completely dark) we sat in a place to overlook the temple, where some torches were burning. My sister and I huddled together under a sleeping bag, and I just wanted to be sleeping! I think if I´d had my own sleeping bag, I would have lain down on the ground and tried...although the point of being there was to watch the sun rise. At around 7 am people down in the temple (which is completely open air) started talking on a microphone, but I wasn´t that interested in what they said. From about 6 it started getting progessively lighter behind the mountains, at some point the sun finally peaked out and everyone turned towards it and held their hands out towards the rays. When it had risen completely above the line of the mountain, everyone clapped, it got slightly warmer, and it was pretty much over. The other American girls said "it was so worth it when the sun finally came out and warmed us up" but I wasn´t that impressed. It happens every day without fail. Today it just happened later than it does any other day. After walking around the site a little bit and watching some traditional dancing and music, we were ready to go. some of us, at least. Traveling in a group of 10 people kind of sucks. Especially when you´re from New York and don´t have too much patience.

We took a cab back and I sat in the front, and was slightly worried that we werent going to make it back to La Paz because we stopped twice for gas without getting it. Then to console myself I told myself that maybe he was just trying to fill up outside the city because gas is cheaper than in La Paz. That was the Lee in me talking, but I needed some way to assure myself that we weren´t going to b sitting on the side of the road for an indefinite amount of time. When we passed another gas station without stopping, I assured myself that we weren´t in dire need of gas, and finally we did get some, although we weren´t stopped long enough for the tank to have been filled.

Coming in and out of La Paz you need to go through El Alto, a growing city with mostly indiginous people from the country coming to the city to find work. It is essentially filled with red brick 1960s communist apartment buildings. Not exactly charming. An interesting thing about La Paz is that even though its so high (something like 4000 meters - that´s meters, not feet), it is actually situated at the BOTTOM of a canyon, so Al Alto (where the airport is) is even higher.

After getting back to the city, we headed out for some food and to check out artesenal shops (like knit alpaca stuff). We ended up eating in a delicious Cuban place, and had a discussion about the inability of Americans to travel to Cuba, ways around it, and the punishment if caught (I´d heard a story of a $10,000 fine per person). Then I walked around the city, which has some part thats are nice, like one plaza, and others that are not at all attractive, like another huge plaza that has a market right next to it. I actually find La Paz a lot more appealing than I thought I would, but its probably because right near the hostel are tons of restraurants of all kinds of food and super cheap.

Plans for tomorrow TBD. Saturday morning my plane leaves for the jungle, although planes to this destination are notorious for not taking off on time or at all during the rainy season (Which this isnt).