La ciudad blanca y cerro rico; los dos patromonios del mundo.

it was definitly Cristo that made me stayed in cochabamba. otherwise i will never met my ¨guardian angels¨. The one from Colombia the other one Peru / Argentina.

small intermezzo: ¨my conversation with Cristo de la concordia¨

Cristo: Christian, mi hijo, venga.

me: Si señor, yo escucho

Cristo: que deseas mi hijo?

me: warmi munaypi :D (it´s quechua)

Cristo: oye, no solo me doy te una, me doy te dos

me: señor muchas gracias

¨another conversation with Cristo o Redentor (Rio de Janeiro)¨

Cristo: Christiano, bem vindo

me: obrigado senhor

Cristo: meu filho, que quiero.

me: senhor, eu quiere tem uma boa experenzia

Cristo: Muito boa, voce recibo.

me: muito obrigado.

In all places where they have put an image of Christ on top of the hill i have been there. started in Rio, then tupiza, then cochabamba and now i went for the one in sucre (with my yugoslavian friend Victor, again it`s Cristo that brought us together again). I really apreaciated my sacred name, and really thankful to have it (thanks mom). but enough about religion, lets move on to my what i have seen. that last sunday i went to the Cerro de San Pedro. i bought the ticket for the teleferia (cabin ski lift) that brought me up the hill to the image of Cristo. The one in Rio is bigger than this one but this one is more buff. well when i was taking picture of cochabamba (and see how big it really is), two senoritas came to me and asked if i could took some picture of them (because they lost their camera). and suddenly i became a photographer. well after that we wandered around, climbed up untill the arms of Christ and we started to descend the cerro. note: on this cerro happened alot of armed robbery. but with the protection of the 2 senoritas nothing was happened :D. and before i left to catched my bus, i got an exhibition of what is called earning money during travelling from the senoritas. before you think about something bad; it`s acrobatic tour at the crossroad. same as the kids in BA do, juggling balls for money or similar. Right now im thinking to buy a small inca guitar and play on the street for some extra money (i aready have the llama poncho and the llama inca hat).

Sucre


After my adventure in cochabamba i arrived in Sucre (la ciudad Blanca) and perhaps one of the most beautiful cities in Bolivia, maybe the most beautiful. all building in the center are painted in colonial white and here they have the most prestige university in the continent: San Fransisco xavier. which results that sucre right now packed with students from all over SA, to study right here (and it`s improved the amount of cuties as well -.O). climbed the cerro with Victor and we spent a day sightseeing sucre, with good weather, in the afternoon El Señor opened the tap above us (rained very hard). the next day i went to the Casa de la libertad. it`s here where the university student of this Jesuit university started to planned liberation movement. It also housed one of the best picture of Simon Bolivar. but what impressed me most was the main hall. the architecture of it is really similar with forum romanum. And i meant the building where the senates of rome came together to discussed (Roman history is like a crack to me). and the gold coated balcony was really splendid. In this room the forefathers of bolivia have signed the act of independence. everyday i´m learning more and more about bolivia and it made me love this country more and more.


Potosi




after Casa de la libertad i went to Potosi. the highest city on it`s size in the world. and in the 16th century the biggest metropole in the world. the reason herefore is Cerro Rico. In cerro rico the spaniards found the indigenous performing rituals and also mined silver. it`s then when the spaniards started to extract huge amount of silver and made them very rich. The richness of potosi could be seen in the center, in the buildings and one in particular is Casa de la moneda. La casa is one of the biggest colonial building in america. and it cost 10 million dollars,present currency, to built it (which is exessive for it`s time). it`s now a museum with collection of really beautiful religous arts and of course coins and the machineries to produced coins. really recomended to see. I don`t have picture of the coins because i do not want to pay extra 20 bolivianos :). instead i spent my money on a mining tour. for the one with good stamina and no heart problems really recomended. we strated our tour buy buying presents for the miners (dynamites, coca leaves, cigarretes and some drink). I also learned to respect ¨pachamama¨with drinking 96% alcohol and also ¨El tio¨ the god inside the mine. when the Spaniard arrived they have brought their 2 gods (the good and the evil). for the indigenous there are no good or evil, only things that happened in the nature. thus they belive that ¨el tio¨(the devil) is their protector because the mine is his territory. to respect the devil means also money because if u respect the ¨owner¨ of the mine he will give u more precious metals. This mix of Catholicism and indigenous believe is really intrigued me. anyway the ¨portal to hell¨ is at 4000 m high and our group descent for about 100 - 200 m to the bowels of the mine. And i have experencied to worked as miner for abit, by pushing carts full with ores (when the guide asked nobody wanted to do it). right now i`m thinking to worked in the mine for a week just to experenciated for a bit.



also when we done the tour, the boss of the tour company asked me to come to the gathering of the most experence miners. where we drunk some singani. the miners asked if in Holland the speak spanish. i said ¨no, i`m learning spanish¨. and they said then now u need to learned quechua. and i said ¨imaynalla¨. the miners bursted in laughter and they really appreciated it. it`s the first time that i felt one with the people here. i`m still amazed right now. so learning quechua is really worth it.


until next time


suerte

Ch´

YMAINALLA??

repuesto es.. allillan. ymainalla is quechua for ¨como esta¨ and allillan is ¨bien¨. i was so impressed that all of the people on the bus spoke with quechua that i decided to learn it as well. my guide Emilio told me that its not that hard.. well it is. but i think i´m more a audio/visual learner rather than a reader. but anyway its long time ago that ive wrote a long article, so right now i want to write a really long article about the centre altiplano of Bolivia.

After a long bus ride started in Concepcion i finally arrived in Cochabamba, with the statue of Cristo de la concordia welcomed at me. the city of cochabamba is surrounded by hills and it´s so green and very different with santa cruz it`s much more fresco. although it is a city of 600.000 inhabitants it still preserve the colonial feel, and it´s kinda remind me of San Telmo a barrio in BA. around the city there are plenty things to do, but i came here to get some information about Parque nacional Toro Toro. And yes if you decide to visit bolivia this one is absolute MUST SEE.

To arrive at the parque it´s kinda complicated (the terrestial transport in Bolivia is a chaos, but organised one) . but i finally arrived in Toro2 at around 3 am. after like 6 hours of good sleep (sleeping in the bus is almost impossible), i went to the office of tourism to registrated and to hired a guide (not allowed to go by yourself). My guide is 20 years old but already worked as guide for 4 years and he is really brilliant, knows alot about the birdlife in surrounding area and the plants aswell. the first thing we saw was the cerro wayllas with the footprints of dinosaurs. and there were HUGE and small footprints. the big ones belong to the giant herbivor and the smaller ones to the carnivors. they were very distinctive because the herbivors have a rounded foot and the carnivors have a distinctive three toes print (with claws). after the cerro we walked to the nearby canyon. Dios mio, the canyon is huge... 200 m deep it was really incredible. I was really amazed about the size of the canyon because I really thought it was a small one (the canyon started nearby the village and it was really small). also great to see was the Frente Roja.

a Arara (big parrot) with colours of bolivian flag, and this species is endangered. after that we take a turned to see the cavern Ciflon- qaqa and the Vergel waterfall. because it was raining it is a bit dangerous to go down to Vergel and thus we stayed on the top of the hill. This canyon is reminder to Iguazu falls but it´s much bigger (and i must admit it`s much more fun walking around here, than walking around Iguazu). To enter the cavern of ciflon is also not possible because of the rain, its better to go to toro2 in dry season i guess. after the ciflon cavern we went back to the village but before that we went to see the walls painting. the painting is not yet researched very well, thus it is not really clear how old the painting exactly is. after that we walked to the turtles cementery where fossils of 60 -65 millions year turtle could be seen. the great thing about toro2 is, everything here is really cheap.

second day we went to umajallanta cavern. uma= water and jallanta= lost in aymara. it was the people of aymara who found the cavern for the first time. before the cavern we waded through the mud (toro toro is a abreviation of T´uru t´uru which means ¨mud¨in quechua), to carrera pampa where there are a distinctive carnivors dinosaurs footprints fossils. the prints are caught when they were on the run thats why it called ¨carrera pampa¨. arrived at the cavern again i was amazed by it`s size but sadly this cavern is kinda destructed. people came here and they cutted the stalagtites and the stalagmites and also the graffities around are kinda ruined the cavern. but it`s still fun to walked through it. we saw vampiers bat´s, stalagtite with strange form, crawled through very small channels.. it was one big adventure. probably the most fun Parque Nacional around. I really enjoyed Toro2 because it has so many things to do: palentologic, archeologic, spleoncologic, rockhopping and crossing some river..

which reminded me, when i went back to cochabamba we were stuck for about 2 hours because a car was stuck in the middle of the river. also the trip back was amazing. when the bus crossed the river water was splash around and the roads were really muddy. This is Bolivia, exactly what i was imagened about it.

back in cochabamba i went to the terminal to buy ticket to Sucre. but i was kinda confused because the lady said ¨veinte y treinta¨ so i though i have a ticket for a 20.30 but when i wanted to get inside the bus i founded out that it was for 20.00 so i ran for the bus but it was already gone. so i need to spent another night in CBBA. but maybe Cristo wanted me to visit him, now it`s sunny so it`s perfect to go to the hill but the hill is rather unsafe.... but tonight i`m going to the officially capital of Bolivia, Sucre. and after a day i want to go to Potosi. this time i need to do it right because carnaval is next week-end and i need to be in Oruro on time.

Entonces.. if you go to Bolivia dont miss Parque Nacional Toro Toro.

Salud

ch´

La perla del Oriente

Yes still in Bolivia, right now in Cochabamba but ive been to the ORIENTE with the collection of the finest churces in Bolivia. and maybe the Most beautiful ive ever seen. started in Robore an old military outpost where ive made friend with the local chicha saleswoman. also with one of the colonel lived there. nearby robore is santiago de chiquito where one they have erected one of the ten jesuits temples. didnt know that there are no transportation back to the robore i have walked back 20 km to robore on my havaianas which richt now i have strained one of my foot. in robore it self there is a fine walk through the forest and to the waterfal (didnt went there). after robore i went to san Jose, with it`s magnificent cathedral and after that i went city hopping (san ignacio, San miguel y san rafael) and ended in concepcion with one of the most magnificent temple. the fine carved benches and the pillars and all the woods resemblence the life of Jesus as carpenter (but thats my own conclusion). But the gilded altar and the paintings on the wall were a big contrary of all that humbleness. i guess it´s one of the times that i would say a picture says more than 1000 words