O.K well I guess keeping up with this blog thing is harder than I thought it’s been at least three weeks since my last post and in that time I’ve done all sorts of stuff, namely crossing the boarder into Bolivia via a three day 4WD adventure into the middle of nowhere, photos to come but at the moment uploading is as painful as having toenails removed with pliers.
Bolivia is a whole lot different to Chile, Chile is one it’s way to become the only country on the South American continent to achive 1st world status, meanwhile it’s neighbour Bolivia is pretty damn poor, it’s hard to walk down the streets and see eight year old kids begging for money or old ladys doing the same, it’s hard because there is nothing that can be done I can give some money or some food but they’ll be back again tomorrow, not that there is anything wrong with giving it’s just that it’s never ending, and the worst part if I’m to be honest, is I’m getting used to seeing it I still feel sad but not like when I first arrived and that’s hard for me, to think that I’m getting used to seeing such suffering and not be affected.
The first stop in Bolivia was Uyuni, not a hell of a lot there just dirt and tourists passing through, we then moved onto Potosi at the advice of two girls from Holland that were heading that way and good advice it turned out to be, Potosi is a mining town and in it’s day was very wealthy now it’s just as poor as everywhere else, the miners work hard and when I say hard I mean like I never thought possible, kids as young as 10 are working down there on shifts as long as 20 hours, most die young from lung disease because of the dust, we had a chance to enter the mine and have a look at the conditions they work under, from memory we were 1km in and 1200km down and chewing cocoa leaves all the way, at the farthest point we reached without warning from below came a noise that would scare the shit out of the bravest man, they were blasting dynamite on the level below and it felt like hell had opened up, the sound was one thing but the shock waves that came through the tunnel stopped us dead in our tracks with eyes like dinner plates we hugged the wall and hoped to once again see the light of day.
One last thing about the mines is that they worship the Devil down there, up top they are all Catholics but down the mine they worship the devil, they believe that only the Devil can claim ownership of such a place, and I can see why, it is nothing less than hell on earth I have never seen anything like it, I can only imagine what it would be like for a ten year old boy heading into hell for the first time.
I met a girl in Potosi, a Norwegian girl who does volunteer work for a orphanage in a place called Cochabamba, we hit it off on the first night and ended up in the next town together in a place called Sucre, it was a great week she’s a lovely girl it’s a shame that I couldn’t have met her back home but such is the life of a man on the road, a week is a long time out here, well it feels that way when you spend all day and all night together you get to know someone pretty quick, good and bad habits, I’ve now arrived in her home town Cochabamba but may not be seeing her as it’s a bit complicated where she is, I kinda do want to and kinda don’t want to see her again we’ve already said our goodbyes and moved on so it’s easier to leave it, but!
We’re hitting the town tonight so hopefully be a good one, I’m not sure how long we’ll be in this town for maybe another couple of days, then we hit La Paz..
TBC…
Turns out she wanted to see me as well, and I’m glad for it we had fun alot of fun, I haven’t felt like that for a couple of years now, didn’t know I ever would but once again I’ve been proved wrong, it was almost like being a teenager again, lying in the park all day going to the movies and not even watching it a stupid amount of PDA but loved every moment. The reason my Norweigan is in Cochabamba is that she volunteers at an orphanage and also lives in a house with twenty three 16yr old boys who don’t have family or are street kids for some reason or another, I had the chance to visit both places and while I’m glad I did at the same time it was one of the most heartbreaking experiences of my life, there were if I remember correctly 170 children ranging from 3 days to about 6yrs, the first room we went to had about 60 babies some being fed some in bed some on the floor some in those walker things, all of them with one thing in common they are all alone from now till the day they die, I know they can find love like everyone else but to grow up like that, to never know where you come from, sometimes they don’t even have a birth date, the worst part is that physical contact is at a minimum because there is not enough people ta give them the attention they need, so these poor babies grow up with the smallest amount of affection possible. After the babies we went through the rest of the place out in the playground were the older kids at about 6yrs, as we walked into the playground they came running up yelling mi papa mi papa I almost cried right then but managed to hold it somehow. After we left I found it hard to talk my mind was a mess, I had so many questions but I couldn’t handle the answers at that time, I needed a moment to absorb what I’d just seen it’s now at least a week and a half later and I still don’t know what to do with the thoughts..
