La Paz Parties and Politics

Strangely enough, it was exactly eight years ago - on the anniversary of the revolution - when Sonya got to La Paz during her time in S. America through UCLA. By her own account, though, that was not nearly as wild and crazy as getting in on the bicentennial of that day in this trip! Some locals in Copacabana had told us they were envious of us being in La Paz on such an exciting day. Copacabana is also in the La Paz Department, but their celebration was going to be much smaller.

Our Bus Stops for Gas on Way to La Paz - note painting of angry attack dog with ¨beware of dog¨ in background contrasting with the cute pup asleep by the pump

We first experienced the craziness while riding on the bus through El Alto, the gigantic burrough on the hills in the outskirts of La Paz. The main road was shut down in one direction, and both directions of traffic (buses, cars, micro-buses, people) had to share just a couple lanes in the busy city. The other lanes were occupied by a GIANT parade lined with people in bleachers. From the bus, we could get a good view over the people to see the hoards of marching bands, floats, and dancers in all types of amazing costumes and dresses.

Glimpse of El Alto Parade from Bus - colorful things sticking up were parts of costumes

When we got into La Paz proper, our bus had to drop us off on a tiny random street instead of the bus stop, which was closed due to La Paz´s evening parade. The streets were jam packed with people and vehicles. All the little sidewalk stores were selling flags (Bolivia flags, La Paz Department flags, Indigenous Revolution flags - the coolest looking of them all), and other paraphanalia for the events. We grabbed our stuff, oriented ourselves with some street signs, and made our way on foot to our hotel.

Points if you can easily interpret the English translation of the sign on our hotel room door...good luck

Once checked in, we headed down only a few blocks to the main Prado. As we arrived, the parade was just beginning. It was an insane environment. People were everywhere. Every side street was full of vendors with open barbecue ovens selling anticuchos (kind of meat skewers). Cotton candy vendors roamed back and forth (and I did partake). Some enterprising locals had set up plastic chairs along the route and were charging 5 Bolivianos for a seat. Luckily for us, even Sonya is quite tall by Bolivian standards, so we could easily see over the crowd.

A little girl is held up by her dad to see the parade in La Paz.

This parade was a little less dramatic than the one in El Alto, but no less enthusiastic and long (about 6 hours in total - we did not stay for the whole thing). Every city manager and city municipal department marched by - department of health, environmental corps, army, navy. Plus it seemed like every high school had a marching band - some amazingly good and others...not quite so much.

Zebras marching in parade...more on that to come

We took a break from the craziness to rest at our hotel for a bit and get some food. We ate at a ¨Mexican¨ place. Note that Mexico is about as far away from here as the US, so ¨Mexican¨ food is not always what you think. My quesadilla lacked anything we might call a tortilla and also lacked cheese altogether. I thought this was interesting, since quesadilla is a Spanish word combination of queso (cheese) and tortilla - and they do speak Spanish here! In addition, they had a 2008 calendar showing Ms. Ketchup and Mustard 2008 right next to a 2009 calendar with Jesus. Sonya wondered what must have happened between 08 and 09 that caused this shift in calendar content choice.

Note the difference in photo content between ´08 and ´09 calendars in this restaurant

We headed back out to see what other excitement we could find. We walked down the Prado to the end of the parade route and found a live band playing Andean music, and they were amazing! We´d heard a lot of little groups playing indigenous music in restaurants, etc., but this was way better. Sonya made friends with a friendly man standing near us and he told us that the band was made up of music teachers. He also told us about the local alcoholic drink that was being sold on the street. It´s called Sacumbe (or something like that) and includes hot Bolivian hard liquor, foamed milk, cinnamon, and coconut. We got one for about 50 cents and it was quite tasty and warm in the cold night. Everyone was as nice as could be. Locals were buying tasty sweet bread from street vendors and sharing it with us. La Paz is a somewhat intimidating place to visit given its giant size, cultural differences from the US, and reputation for having some amount of crime. I was amazed to find some of the nicest and friendliest people we´ve met in any city so far! Of course it was a celebratory time, so everyone had a reason to be happy, but those good attitudes seem to have held up in the days after the festivities as well. At midnight there were fireworks in a different part of the city that we could see some of while we sipped another Sacumbe.

Got me some cotton candy! Just as tasty in Bolivia!

The next day the festivities continued, and we got a bit more of a view of the political culture of the area. During breakfast we watched the generally well-meaning but sometimes extreme president, Evo Morales, give a speech on TV to the citizens. He was joined by the presidents of Ecuador, Paraguay, and most importantly of Venezuela (Hugo Chavez) - Nicaragua, Argentina, and Cuba also sent representatives. Notably, Chile, Peru, and certainly the US did NOT send any representatives. It was a bit odd to listen to Evo when he got to talking about the US, which he always does. He talked about some terrible things the US has done in Latin America and Bolivia (unfortunately, much of it true). He also more specifically said that any Latin American country that permits a US base on its soil is basically terrible and is dishonoring its people. He pointed out the ¨victory¨ of how one of the regions in Bolivia recently voted to eliminate a US base. This was no doubt aimed at Columbia, who that same day made an agreement with the US to support additional bases to help fight drug cartels in their country (notebaly, Columbia also did not have a representative at the festivities).

Traditional Cholita woman (in formal dress) walking to festivities alongside modern-dressed folks

This is basically in line with the current rhetoric in the country over the US federal government, and also explains why we haven´t encountered hardly any other US citizens traveling here - doesn´t exactly make you feel welcome. As we rode the bus through El Alto, we saw numerous large signs reading ¨US AID = terrorismo.¨ When Evo first ran for president, he apparently refused to debate his opponents, saying that he would rather debate the ring leader - the US ambassador (who has since been forced out of the country). It´s been harder to land a punch against the US more recently, as Obama is generally quite popular here. Also, the rhetoric doesn´t seem to trickle down to US citizens. Like I said, I think we´ve met some of the friendliest people of our entire trip here in La Paz! All the same, I generally tell people I´m from California rather than the Estados Unidos. People here love film (ex. Hollywood) and they also love Arnold, so California tends to bring up a different image for them than the US in general. We could tell people we´re from another country, but as Sonya points out you can´t change peoples´ minds about you if you lie about where you´re from!

Crazy crazy crowds and traffic at the stadium - we decided not to fight the crowds in for the free all night long traditional dance and music (watched live on TV instead)

It´s strange to notice some of the ironies of the political situation as well. The night of the 2nd day of festivities, we went to dinner in a very nice part of town. There we saw a huge hubbub around the Radisson hotel. There were security guards everywhere, security cameras were setup all around the hotel, and there were tons of people dressed up as zebras in the plaza (zebras became a local symbol a few years back when the city employed young adults in zebra suits as crossing guards). The zebras didn´t mind taking a picture with Sonya. We were trying to figure out what was going on when we saw a huge Venezuelan flag flying in front of the hotel entrance. We then figured out that Hugo must be staying there and was about to be treated to a Zebra show of some sort. Earlier that day, the presidential luncheon was also held at the Radisson.

Sonya with Venz. President Hugo Chavez´s zebras - see above

It´s a bit funny to think of Hugo - the left wing anti-US, anti-global capitalist - sitting comfortably in his Radisson hotel (whose parent international corporation is based in Minnesota) while likely also drinking his coca cola and enjoying his zebra show. In that same area there are a range of other 5 star, Latin American hotels that could have hosted the luncheon and the dignitaries. It´s funny that those leaders can spend their days verbally jabbing at US capitalist policies and then go give their money to a US corporation instead of locally across the street. I certainly don´t deny that there are huge ironies in US policy as well, but it´s still pretty funny to see the extraordinarilly obvious discontinuity here.

The local newspaper we bought on 16 July - check out all the full color special sections and free fold out poster

We also saw a lot of (basically) state propoganda about how great Evo is and all the great things he´s done for the city/country (ex. the dinosaur below). There are billboards on almost every other street around La Paz proclaiming some aspect of his greatness. Pretty strange environment, but I´ve loved the city and the people here! Also, I suppose the fact that I can sit here writing this in central La Paz shows that Bolivia still shares some important similarities with the US (at least in terms of freedoms - though Sonya would perhaps somewhat rather I post this from CA rather than here). It´s pretty amazing that (by luck) we got to see such an exciting time in the history of the city with so many fun events and so many friendly people!

Throngs of people and a news crew (in foreground) crowding the new dinosaur in the park (one of a few public works projects opened up for the holiday). Seriously people...it´s just a plastic dinosaur right?