Today we visited a gold mine. According to our guide, the mine was in operation for 25 years but is closed now and in the reclamation phase. It is a strip-mine where literally a mountain was moved and another created from the tailings to produce precious few ounces of gold. There´s a lake where the mountain used to be.
If our guide is to be beleived, this is one of the most environmentally appropriate mines anywhere in the world. They release no contaminated water into the ground or the river and they bury their contaminated solid wastes so they won´t ever leach into the surrounding soil.
We have another Rotary meeting tonight, and then the District Conference starts Friday. All of us are looking forward to seeing again many of the friends we´ve met in the past month, but we
suddenly seem to be counting the days until we board our airplane home.
Thursday, April 28, 2011
Wednesday, April 27, 2011
Michael: Bombing downhill
I have a confession to make. Yesterday, I played hookie.
Months ago, shortly after I had been picked to lead our team to Bolivia, I learned about the infamous “Death Road,” reputedly the most dangerous road in the world. The Yungas Road once claimed more deaths per year than any other in the world, due to its steep cliffs, narrowness, absence of guard rails, and heavy traffic. A new, parallel road was completed in 2006, removing most of the traffic. (Incidentally, the parallel road is in fact longer, and curvier, but it has consistent, paved lanes and guard-rails.) But the precariousness of the old road remains. Read all about it here: http://www.travel-bolivia.com/yungas-road.html.
My understanding is that this experience was originally on our agenda, but was removed a week or so ago, either because the district governor thought it to be too dangerous or because we had one fewer day on our schedule because of the delay in Sucre. I was disappointed, but resigned. But on Monday, I sat next to a man at a lunch Rotary meeting who told me the trip was not to be missed. The schedule appeared to have more school visits (of which we’d already done many) yesterday, so I asked the team if they wanted to go. After some initial enthusiasm, everyone backed out. So I went myself.
I signed on with the oldest touring company here, “Gravity Assisted Mountain Biking,” at a cost of $106. They began offering this trip in 1999, years before the new road. So in those days riders had to fight with traffic all the way. And it’s a busy road, as it is the only route from the Yungas to La Paz. They picked up two groups of around 15 people each at a downtown La Paz restaurant and took us by bus to an elevation of 15,400, beside an alpine lake, where the road to Corioco reaches its highest elevation. They outfitted us with matching red vests, a helmet, gloves, and an optional jacket and pants. It was cold but the views were spectacular, with white puffy clouds framing the high, rocky peaks. The first half of the trip was on pavement, which passed rapidly under our wheels. I stopped several times to take photos, but was still able to catch up with the others. The bikes were deliberately under-geared, to keep crazy people like me from going too fast.
The clouds thickened and soon the rains came, heavily at times. The area had more plants, larger and denser. We quickly became wet, with water soaking through our jackets.
We were given the option of riding an 8-kilometer section of mixed uphill and downhill, but our guide discouraged it given the inclemency. So our guides re-loaded the bikes and we rode to the “official” entrance of the Death Road.
As I mentioned, a new road was completed in 2006, so almost the entirety of the traffic is siphoned off the Death Road. Although it is still a public road, it is now almost devoid of motor vehicles. It has become the world’s most exciting bicycle route.
Good thing, too, because it is extremely narrow in places. I am accustomed to riding roads like this, because for decades I’ve been riding similar mountain roads in our Appalachians, both on bicycles and on motorcycles. The difference is that on the roads with which I’m familiar, if you go off the side you can fall 20 feet and get injured. If you fall off this road, you can fall 1000 feet and you will surely die. Our guide says even many bicyclist have done so, typically from simply standing or parking too close to the edge.
The upper portion of the road was wrapped in a dense fog, so I could sense little of the precariousness. It was perhaps a good thing, as I began to bomb along the road with a blissful exuberance. I was determined not to let the weather dampen my enthusiasm. As I told my guide at one of the many stops, I’ve been cold and I’ve been wet and I’ve been wet and cold. I can handle cold and I can handle wet. Cold and wet is miserable. At this point, we were wet but with the steadily decreasing altitude, the temperature was warming.
What was evident in the mist was the increasing foliage and jungle-like environment. At some places, there were impressive waterfalls spilling down from above. In others, there were streams of water spilling onto the road from overhangs. It was magnificent!
Further down the road, the rain stopped and the skies began to break, revealing imposing mountains, rounded by dense foliage. I began to peal layers of clothing, leaving the loaned pants and jacket in the bus. My bicycle was clearly intended to do this type of extreme down-hilling, with ample suspension front and rear. I could really fly on it!
Towards the bottom, we rode through two streams, re-soaking our feet. Finally we began to reach habitations. One village looked almost like a ghost town, where once travelers stocked up on Coca-Cola before braving the road, but now all the traffic was gone. We encountered only a smattering of vehicles the whole way, mostly motorcycles.
Our trip ended at an elevation of 5000 feet (10,500 lower than where we began) with lunch, showers, and a tour at a wildlife rehabilitation center, where parrots, monkeys, and other animals flocked around the grounds. That’s a story in itself, but I’ve got to get ready for our day, including a presentation to all seven La Paz Rotary clubs at lunchtime, then a bus transfer to our final city, Oruru, later this afternoon. Yesterday was my best day of the trip!
Months ago, shortly after I had been picked to lead our team to Bolivia, I learned about the infamous “Death Road,” reputedly the most dangerous road in the world. The Yungas Road once claimed more deaths per year than any other in the world, due to its steep cliffs, narrowness, absence of guard rails, and heavy traffic. A new, parallel road was completed in 2006, removing most of the traffic. (Incidentally, the parallel road is in fact longer, and curvier, but it has consistent, paved lanes and guard-rails.) But the precariousness of the old road remains. Read all about it here: http://www.travel-bolivia.com/yungas-road.html.
My understanding is that this experience was originally on our agenda, but was removed a week or so ago, either because the district governor thought it to be too dangerous or because we had one fewer day on our schedule because of the delay in Sucre. I was disappointed, but resigned. But on Monday, I sat next to a man at a lunch Rotary meeting who told me the trip was not to be missed. The schedule appeared to have more school visits (of which we’d already done many) yesterday, so I asked the team if they wanted to go. After some initial enthusiasm, everyone backed out. So I went myself.
I signed on with the oldest touring company here, “Gravity Assisted Mountain Biking,” at a cost of $106. They began offering this trip in 1999, years before the new road. So in those days riders had to fight with traffic all the way. And it’s a busy road, as it is the only route from the Yungas to La Paz. They picked up two groups of around 15 people each at a downtown La Paz restaurant and took us by bus to an elevation of 15,400, beside an alpine lake, where the road to Corioco reaches its highest elevation. They outfitted us with matching red vests, a helmet, gloves, and an optional jacket and pants. It was cold but the views were spectacular, with white puffy clouds framing the high, rocky peaks. The first half of the trip was on pavement, which passed rapidly under our wheels. I stopped several times to take photos, but was still able to catch up with the others. The bikes were deliberately under-geared, to keep crazy people like me from going too fast.
The clouds thickened and soon the rains came, heavily at times. The area had more plants, larger and denser. We quickly became wet, with water soaking through our jackets.
We were given the option of riding an 8-kilometer section of mixed uphill and downhill, but our guide discouraged it given the inclemency. So our guides re-loaded the bikes and we rode to the “official” entrance of the Death Road.
As I mentioned, a new road was completed in 2006, so almost the entirety of the traffic is siphoned off the Death Road. Although it is still a public road, it is now almost devoid of motor vehicles. It has become the world’s most exciting bicycle route.
Good thing, too, because it is extremely narrow in places. I am accustomed to riding roads like this, because for decades I’ve been riding similar mountain roads in our Appalachians, both on bicycles and on motorcycles. The difference is that on the roads with which I’m familiar, if you go off the side you can fall 20 feet and get injured. If you fall off this road, you can fall 1000 feet and you will surely die. Our guide says even many bicyclist have done so, typically from simply standing or parking too close to the edge.
The upper portion of the road was wrapped in a dense fog, so I could sense little of the precariousness. It was perhaps a good thing, as I began to bomb along the road with a blissful exuberance. I was determined not to let the weather dampen my enthusiasm. As I told my guide at one of the many stops, I’ve been cold and I’ve been wet and I’ve been wet and cold. I can handle cold and I can handle wet. Cold and wet is miserable. At this point, we were wet but with the steadily decreasing altitude, the temperature was warming.
What was evident in the mist was the increasing foliage and jungle-like environment. At some places, there were impressive waterfalls spilling down from above. In others, there were streams of water spilling onto the road from overhangs. It was magnificent!
Further down the road, the rain stopped and the skies began to break, revealing imposing mountains, rounded by dense foliage. I began to peal layers of clothing, leaving the loaned pants and jacket in the bus. My bicycle was clearly intended to do this type of extreme down-hilling, with ample suspension front and rear. I could really fly on it!
Towards the bottom, we rode through two streams, re-soaking our feet. Finally we began to reach habitations. One village looked almost like a ghost town, where once travelers stocked up on Coca-Cola before braving the road, but now all the traffic was gone. We encountered only a smattering of vehicles the whole way, mostly motorcycles.
Our trip ended at an elevation of 5000 feet (10,500 lower than where we began) with lunch, showers, and a tour at a wildlife rehabilitation center, where parrots, monkeys, and other animals flocked around the grounds. That’s a story in itself, but I’ve got to get ready for our day, including a presentation to all seven La Paz Rotary clubs at lunchtime, then a bus transfer to our final city, Oruru, later this afternoon. Yesterday was my best day of the trip!
Tuesday, April 26, 2011
Doug: Cooking With Renzo
No this isn't the next show coming to Food Network but, it should be. Last night the team chipped in and we went to a local market to pick up all the ingredients needed for a cookout. We bought piles of meat, chorizo sausage, potatoes, corn, and a variety of other vegetables. The markets aren't the "super" variety we are used to back home. They are more rustic but, the ingredients are all fresh (I think).
We enjoyed a leisurely cookout at Renzo's place. We ate in spurts, as the meat was prepared, and sampled the local wines and beers. We started around 8 and finished around midnight. Plenty of time to learn some new cooking skills, chat, and check out the grill. The grills here are pretty cool. Charcoal is the preferred BBQ source here. All the grills I have seen have a crank with bicycle chains that lower or raise the grilling rack to control the heat. I want to build one when I get home so I can use some of the cooking tips Renzo taught us.
Feel free to contact me for some great recipes and cooking ideas when this trip is done.
We enjoyed a leisurely cookout at Renzo's place. We ate in spurts, as the meat was prepared, and sampled the local wines and beers. We started around 8 and finished around midnight. Plenty of time to learn some new cooking skills, chat, and check out the grill. The grills here are pretty cool. Charcoal is the preferred BBQ source here. All the grills I have seen have a crank with bicycle chains that lower or raise the grilling rack to control the heat. I want to build one when I get home so I can use some of the cooking tips Renzo taught us.
Feel free to contact me for some great recipes and cooking ideas when this trip is done.
Monday, April 25, 2011
Michael: An astounding place
The nature of GSE is the constant introduction of new people into our lives. We have house hosts for each city, changing every 5-6 days. Then we have daily hosts who usher us from place to place. Some days we have good drivers and some days less good. Yesterday, Doug and I had a good one. His name was Miguel and he is a Rotarian and civil engineer.
It was Easter Sunday (Happy holiday, everyone), and it was a day for us to be tourists. In the morning, we drove out of the bowl that contains La Paz on the only real highway connecting the city to the new city on the rim, El Alto. As the city grew and filled the bowl, El Alto grew around the airport high on the rim.
La Paz is a city of around 850,000, officially located in the valley of Chuquiago Marka. The elevation is listed at 12,000, but it varies all over the deeply corrugated landscape. There are many high-rise buildings (up to 30 stories) and many modern features. The weather varies by location, but is generally warmer than the surrounding countryside.
El Alto grew from around 650,000 ten years ago to around 900,000 now, making it one of the fastest growing cities in South America. It sits on the Altiplano at 13,600 feet of elevation and is typically always cold. It has an endless sprawl of low (2-3 story) buildings and the people are mostly indigenous and poor. The Altiplano is a huge high-elevation plain, the largest in the world outside of Tibet, and Bolivia’s most unique feature. The south Altiplano is marked by the Salar de Uyuni, the salt flat we visited earlier and in the north by Lake Titicaca, our ultimate destination for the day.
After making our way through light traffic in El Alto, we stopped in tiny village called Laja, which was the original city of La Paz. When the Spanish Conquistadors found gold on the stream in Chuquiago Marka, they moved the city there to its present location. Today’s village of Laja contains a nice cathedral, which was empty this Easter morning.
We then spent several hours at Tiwanaku, where there was an impressive ruin of a pre-Inca community. Too much to write about, but Wikipedia has this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiwanaku.
Then our entourage of our team, plus Pedro, Renzo, and Nicholas (from the inbound team), Renzo’s girlfriend, Miguel, another Rotarian driver whose name I can’t remember, and Joanne White who was Nicholas’ host from Wintergreen, had lunch in the town, where for the first time I had llama meat. We then took a leisurely boat ride on Lake Titicaca, the largest lake in South America and at 12,500 feet, the highest commercially navigable lake in the world. Low hills framed the western shore and immense snow-capped mountains framed the east. Gorgeous!
The drive home was most memorable.
Miguel and I chatted in the front while Doug listened to music in the back seat. We talked mostly in English, his English being better than my Spanish. He said his work took him all across his country and he was familiar with perhaps 60% of the country’s roads. He admitted how difficult it was to be a good driver in Bolivia. On this rural road, cars were constantly stopping to take on passengers. There were stray dogs everywhere. A cow ran across the road. We were constantly weaving around pot-holes and pavement imperfections. It was tiring for him, but he said he was used to it. Bolivia’s first 4-lane highway is now under construction from La Paz to Oruru, our next and final host city.
As we spoke, dark clouds loomed overhead, but the sun illuminated one of the snow-capped peaks. Miguel stopped the car on the busy 2-lane road so Doug and I could run across the highway and snap some photos, one of which is yesterday’s post. Beside us as we took the picture there was a huge pile of mostly burned rubbish; a strange juxtaposition of beauty and trash.
We continued into the metropolitan area, with increasing traffic of people returning home from the holiday weekend. With no limited access roads like our interstate highways, movement slowed to a crawl. Miguel left the main road and wound us through the neighborhoods of El Alto. Many buildings looked to be under-utilized or under construction, at least on the top floor or two. There were several outdoor markets, still vibrant in the early night-time. At one point, in the center of a traffic circle, there appeared to be a concert or festival concluding. Two men, one apparently quite drunk, wandered into the street, where the inebriated fellow bounced off the side the slow moving car in front of us. We eventually reached the edge of the canyon rim, where El Alto gave way to La Paz. The great city loomed before us in a sea of lights, both blue-white and yellow, flowing over the hills below. The road made an endless series of tight, twisting switchbacks, winding downward. Miguel pointed out where a landslide had occurred decades earlier, with dozens of fatalities. The further we descended the taller and more modern the buildings became. It was spell-binding.
Miguel took us to the door of our guest home and promised to see us again in a few days. The adventure continues in this astounding place.
Sunday, April 24, 2011
Michael: Now look what this crazy country gave us!
I don’t mean to offend anyone, but this is an insane country. The politics are as perennially unstable as the mountainsides above La Paz. The music is loud, the traffic is frantic and ungoverned by discernable laws. People drink hard, party late, and listen to their music loud. There’s trash and there are broken down vehicles everywhere.
And then, when this loco nation is about to drive me to drink (or equivalent; use your imagination), it gives us a scene like this.
Shelter Box tents
One of the two dozen camps for the 5000 people displaced by the Februrary 2011 land slide. It is a miracle nobody was killed in this event.
Saturday, April 23, 2011
Doug: The Dichotomy of Our Experience
Today we started the day touring a site where a landslide had occured. Nearly 5000 people had lost their homes in that event. We were taken to the camps where these people were living. Local Rotary Clubs had furnished tents for the families to live but, in many cases multiple families were living in the same tents. It was crowded and one woman sobbed as she told us of how she had lost all she had. Rotary had already helped to give these people a place to stay but, there is still much that these people needed. It would be amazing to see clubs back in our district step in and contribute upon our return.
After touring the camps we were given another tour. We went to a place called the Valley of the Moon. It was a beautiful geographic area that one person said was like the Luray Cavern except we weren't in a cave. I think the team enjoyed the tour and I will post pictures soon. We then went to a country home for a BBQ. As usual we were treated to copious amounts of delicious food and drink.
All in all there is a certain dichotomy to this GSE experience. There are highs and lows we experience everyday. We see the poor and the rich, high altitudes and low, hot temperatures and cold nights. Today we saw people living in difficult conditions yet in the same day we celebrated and feasted. I think this experience highlights the blessings that we all have and the need to share what we can to make a difference in other peoples lives.
After touring the camps we were given another tour. We went to a place called the Valley of the Moon. It was a beautiful geographic area that one person said was like the Luray Cavern except we weren't in a cave. I think the team enjoyed the tour and I will post pictures soon. We then went to a country home for a BBQ. As usual we were treated to copious amounts of delicious food and drink.
All in all there is a certain dichotomy to this GSE experience. There are highs and lows we experience everyday. We see the poor and the rich, high altitudes and low, hot temperatures and cold nights. Today we saw people living in difficult conditions yet in the same day we celebrated and feasted. I think this experience highlights the blessings that we all have and the need to share what we can to make a difference in other peoples lives.
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