Land of Sun Hats and Bikes ... and Bolivia!
Claire Stoscheck
The Land of Bikes and Sun Hats... Sombreros and Bicis
Abra Pampa, Argentina
We
rolled into town in the early evning, and the very first thing that
struck us were the large quantities of sombreros (sun hats in
traditional indigenous style) and bicycles. We giggled in excitement,
as we always do when we stumble across towns or cities with a large
number of cyclists. Here in Abra Pampa you see all types of folks,
women, men, children, biking, and many of them are sporting thier
traditional dress and the majority of them are sporting a sombrero.
Abra
Pampa is a small city in the middle of the paramo surrounded by
mountians and llamas. It is a lovely town with a lovely carnaval (we
spent half of our carnaval there!), and is unfortunately highly
contaminated with lead. The foriegn owned (no surprise) lead-processing
factory entered the town about 50 years ago, and left 10 years ago
leaving behind giant mountains of lead which, via wind and water, has
contaminated every inch of Abra Pampa and a 15km radiu
s
around it. Children are born with high levels of lead in their blood
passed on from their mothers and then the blood level increases with
age as they drink and breath lead everyday of thier lives. Because of
the lead some people are hyper active, others are larthargic, and all
have memory problems. It´s a huge problem, and the family Baldarama,
with whom we stayed, wants to leave and move to La Quiaca to escape the
environmental poison, even as they continue to struggle in thier
campaign to get the government to clean up the poison. It´s a very sad
situation, because the company left without cleaning up thier mess, and
the government doesn´t want anything to do with it, and the folks in
the town don´t have the money or resources to clean it up. So what
happens? The people of Abra Pampa continue to live in a sea of lead
poisoning...
One very positive aspect of Abra Pampa is the
alternative library there, run by volunteers, including the family
Baldarama with whom we stayed (because they are friends of
Mamondes-Baldarama, the family with whom we stayed in Amaiche de
Valle). The library has books on social movements in Latin America,
Indigenous movements, Indigenous culture, South American literature,
etc... all subjects to help raise consciousness about human rights and
environmentalism, and to help strengthen the indigenous movement. It´s
a very positive place where they also perform ceromonies and give
offerings to the Pacha Mama, in which we were lucky enough to
participate. In Abra Pampa we learned a lot about the Indigenous
movement, and la lucha para la vida (the struggle for life) that exists
in Argentina and in all the area of South America that used to be the
Incan empire (Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, and Argentina). The movement has
spirit, and we wish our friends in Abra Pampa, Quilmes, Amaiche de
Valle, etc... the best of luck in thier struggle.
As for the
bike movement, we learned a lot from our friend Padre Quique, the
pastor in the church in Abra Pampa who rides his bici everyday. You can
hear his take on bike culture in Abra Pampa in the interview we had
with him... just visit our google group http://groups.google.com/group/movementporuncambio
Here is Padre Quique with his best friend/bicycle
Ironically the Mamonde-Baldarama family from Amaiche was there visiting at the same time as u
s!
We had a marvelous time with them, the Baldarama family from Abra
Pampa, and friends from the alternative library (like Luis, one of the
only anarchists we´ve met on the trip). I also was very sick while in
Abra Pampa, and Edmoundo (from the Abra Pampa family) helped to cure me
by doing a cleansing (they believed that I was so sick because perhaps
I climbed a mountain without asking permision from the Pacha
Mama-mother earth, and so I needed to be cleansed and forgiven. They
told us from now on we should ask permission to climb mountains, enter
rivers or to camp, and we have done so.) The day we left they invited
us to an asado (BB-Q... yes I´ve been eating meat during the trip...you
have to be flexible in this type of thing) and a ceromony thanking the
pacha mama for the cosecha (harvest) and for the tools that allow us to
live our lives. The family blessed thier house and helped us to bless
our bikes, which are our main tools in life right now--they are our
mobility and our houses, and our happiness. We left covered in confetti
and flour which they poured on our heads to represent the happiness
they hoped for in our lives. We left Abra Pampa in happiness ...
Bolivia: Dirt roads, llamas and Salt Flats
Hello from Oruro, Bolivia, where the days are cold and the nights are colder! (We´ve been sleep
ing
with 2 pairs of pants and three jackets, and still are cold!) It is now
the 22 of February. We crossed the border around the 10th of Februry
from La Quiaca into Villazon. After running errands and enjoying a bit
of the gorgeous Villazon carnaval (very elaborate costums, our favorite
were the miners because they were funny and were the only ones
representing people from the working class), we headed out into the
dusty unknown of Bolivia´s dirt roads--me with my new liscence plate
that says ¨Pedaling to mitigate climate change". The first day was fun,
getting used to the dirt road with it´s potholes, bumps (bachacitos)
and sand traps. The second was tough, as we did 53km and we started to
feel the constant vibrations in our bones... and our behinds! It was
this day that I realized that my bike really isn´t cut out for this
kind of mountain terrain (without front suspension and with smooth
tires). But it held up! And so did we. We arrived in Tupiza as the
night fell and found a cheap hostal (no such thing as camping in cities
in Bolivia, that is truly an Argentine phenomenon). We stayed a few
days as I got sicker and sicker (again!) and decided to take the tren
to Uyuni because we knew the roads were terrible and my health as well.
So we took off at 6pm--Cristhian´s first time on a train!--very happy
that the train system still works in Bolivia (in Argetina it´s dead!).
In Uyuni we rested and I got better, thanks to anti biotics (I´ve been
on 3 different anti-biotics in one month! A new record for me...) and
we took off to Colchani, a small town on the "coast" of the largest
salt flat in the world (as they say), el Solar de Uyuni (and enjoyed
watching the baby llamas that were all over the place!). We arrived at
night and found a hostel, where a group of agentinos and estado
unidenses were staying. They invited us to dinner and we stayed up all
night talking, especially about US politics as one of the argentinos
had lived there for 5 months. The next morning we awoke, and decided to
cook breakfast next to a store in the main intersection in town. As
would become normal in Bolivia, we attracted a grand audience of kids
who were very curious about what we were doing. We conversed with and
entertained them for a good hour, and then headed down to the solar.
And there, our bikes shrunk and we blew them away! No no, just kidding,
we just had fun messing with the camera and perspective because the
salt flat makes you loose all
perspective. We had wanted to cross 
the
solar biking, and many tourers have done before us, but as we had heard
in Tupiza, and as was confirmed when arrive on the shore of the solar,
the solar was covered in a few feet of water, and there wasn´t anyway
to cross it in bicycle--even the jeeps were having trouble! We hung out
on the coast for a while, taking in the amazingness that is the giant
sea of salt, and were surprised to see jeep after jeep full of tourists enter the water after taking a few photos of the beauty, a
nd without thinking, leaving a thick line of oil on the coastline. They
are destroying the beauty they have come to see... ironic and sad. Our
advice to you--if you are going to cross the solar, cross walking or
biking because if you go in jeep you´ll only help to ruin the solar. We
were sad to not be able to cross in bici, but very happy to have had
the chance to see the magnificent solar. We headed out of town and
camped in a sea of rocks in the paramo. Good thing we went to the
solar, because no one here sells the rock salt we need for our water
purifyer! (yes we are purifying the water here after hearing many
stories). The next day we biked a good bit, and walked too (as there
are patches of sand that you just cannot bike through!) and camped
behind a far
mer´s house who had llamas, sheep, chickens and geese. We a
lmost
froze that night and realized we need to sleep in all our clothes! The
next day we took off and right away ran into some road workers who had
bikes. We asked them how long it takes to bike to Rio Mulato and they
let us in on a little secret--it´s much faster if you take the bike
path! They told us how to get there, and we found it (looking for bike
tracks) and took the first bike path we´ve seen in Bolivia--that cuts right through the paramo! It
was fun, a nice break from the bumpy road. It was perfectly the right
size for bikes, and after cutting through the paramo it followed the
railroad. I´m not sure it was faster
(as we had to get off our bikes often to cross holes and bridges and the sort) but it was refreshing, and
we think it´s great that the cyclists here take it into their own hands
to make thier own bike paths and don´t wait on the government to do it
for them. In Rio Mulato we bought food and purified water, and
headed out again, finding some protection from the wind in a little
hole in the ground. The sky was threatening but beautiful, and it
looked like someone watercolored it. The next day we were siked to bike
(we only had 100km more of dirt roads!) but quickly found out that
Cristhian´s freewheel broke! We´d never seen such a thing, but it just
broke in half. So I returned 4km to Rio Mulato where I met a cyclist
who helped me out with information about how to get to Oruro. I found
out that at times he bikes to Uyuni
(about 90km) in 8 hours...which is a great feat on these dirt roads...
and the most impressive thing is that this man has one arm! It
is cyclists like him who inspire and motivate me. We spent a good part
of the day trying to get a train or bus or truck to take us to Oruro
where we could buy Cristhian a freewheel because we didn´t know how
much longer he could bike on the broken one and we didn´t want to be
stranded. After a bit we got sick of waiting and headed out biking, and
that night camped 20km beyond the town behind a campesina´s house,
where they gifted us hot soup at night (how kind!) In the morning the
7+ children formed our audience as we packed up to go. We biked fast
that day, zooming along at 15km/hour (which is super fast for the dirt
roads). We arrived in Sevaruyo happy, but there was a small problem,
between us and the town was a giant river. But never fear, we thought,
there´s always a way. So we decided to cross the river on the train
bridge. It turned out to be a funny choice because, well, Cristhian
crossed first, and I was struggling across with my bike, perhaps one
third across, when beep beep! we realized a train was coming! oh no!
But luckily it was a mini train which, presumedly, has good brakes.
However, it wasn´t stopping, so I turned around and with all my
strength I lifted my bike to my shoulder and began to run back to the
side I started on, while a women below doing her laundr
y
in the river yelled to me "Drop your bike in the river and run! Drop
your bike!" But I thought, No Way am I going to drop my bike in the
river, I´m gonna cross this bridge or die with my bicycle! Okay, maybe
not so dramatic, but I felt very protective of my bike. I arrive on the
other side just in time and dropped to the ground exhausted. Cristhian
took my bike to cross it and I started crossing alone and just then,
poof! a giant storm appeared out of no where (we haven´t had rain at
all in Bolivia!) and dumped hailstones on us! So here I was in my
little bike shorts crossing this long train bridge with hailstones
stinging my legs and laughing because really the situation couldn´t get
more hilarious. We finally made it to the other side and found shelter
and 5 minutes later, there was a bus! And they told us they could take
us to Oruro! Ironic, we waited a half day in Rio Mulato for a
transportation to Oruro, and in Sevoruyo a bus appeared within minutes!
So we hopped on, sad to not be biking but happy to be able to get a new
freewheel without being stranded in the paramo. The bus was full of
miners, employees of the Washington Group, Bolivia, a US corporation,
and there was one man who was so siked that I a "Americana" he gave me
a beer and cheered me. Haha. Ironic that the first person who´s excited
that I¨m from the states is working for a US-based transnational that
is exploiting the earth in Bolivia for silver. So! After all these
great Bolivian adventures we are in Oruro and preparing to bike on to
Cochabomba to visit some of my friends from college and other contacts.
From there we will head on to La Paz, Lago Titcaca, and we hope to be
in Cusco, Peru, within a month, where we will meet up with a friend
from Quito to head on up to Ecuador! Cristhian has a new freewheel and
we´ve washed our clothes. All set to bike on to Cocha! Until the next
time... bike on!