Bolivia

My next destination after Tarija, was Cochabamba, I decided not to take the 20+ hour hellish bus ride, flying instead, which took only 45 minutes, not even enough time to serve drinks. In Cochabamba I suffered an acute case of altitude sickness, it started with a feeling of sickness and lack of appetite, followed by a headache. Cochabamba lies at an altitude of 2600, at the threshold where altitude sickness starts to take effect. It caught me by surprise since I never suffered from altitude sickness in Cochabamba before, and I though that if I just rest in my bed, I'll get better, but I just kept feeling worst, finally I got myself to get out of bed (with some encouragement), and I found the remedy to my illness, 'mate de coca', coca tea, this stuff works like magic, five minutes after I drank it, all the symptoms of altitude sickness disappeared.

My last few days in Bolivia I spent in Coroico, a small town in the valleys of the Yungas, with a temperate climate. Set at the slope of one of the mountains, it provides a beautiful scenic view of the surrounding mountains and valleys, a view that I found both gripping and disquieting, the mountains are massive, and the drops to the valleys are very steep, probably 1500-2000 meter from the bottom of the valleys to the top of the mountains. The sky was generally overcast, and sometimes we got shrouded by fog, but sometimes it would clear up, but not completely, leaving a thin layer of haze, that blocked some of the sun light, mitigating the intensity of the burning sun rays, to a gentle warm level. Sometimes it rained too, this area generally gets a lot of rain, a fact supported by the view of ever green sub tropical vegetation. The old road to Coroico is a dangerous route, with several hundred meter cliff drops at the edge of the road, looking out the the window of the small bus made me ask my self: how did I willingly agreed to go on this road for a third time? But after hundreds of people died of accidents on this road, the government of Bolivia decided to build a new road, a safer paved road, that cuts about an hour of the travel time between Coroico and La Paz. Still the tourists want to go on the old road, for the experience, so most buses go to Coroico using the old road, and go back using the new road, at least the trucks no longer use the old road, reducing the risk of accidents.


While I was relaxing in Coroico, troubles had erupted in Cochabamba, which I had left only a couple of days earlier, the marches against the governor of Cochabamba by Coca farmers, had already stared when I was in Cochabamba, but they seemed to be peaceful marches, when I was in Cochabamba, but a few days later, when the peaceful protests did not persuade the governor to drop his plans for a referendums on an autonomy from the central government, the protests turned violent, the protesters surrounded the governors office in the main plaza, set it on fire, rampaged and sacked stores, the police had to escort out the governor to safety disguised in a police uniform. Things turned from bad to worst when supporters of the governor flocked to the streets in a demonstration of support, both protester groups were armed and fighting broke out, that left a few people dead and hundreds injured, and turned the center of the city into scene of chaos and destruction. Things seem to have calmed down a bit now, a big military force was sent to the city to bring order. But this was just one round in the larger conflict between the pro and anti Evo Morales camps, and it is no surprise this clash took place in Cochabamba, the city lying midway between La Paz, the center of power of Morales, and the east and south regions calling for independence from the central government. This round might decide which side Cochabamba joins in the general conflict, or it might just leave Cochabamba bitterly divided.

From La Paz I was going to fly Bogoto Colombia, my girlfriend on the other hand is from Cochabamba, and she needed to travel back home, but the road to Cochabamba was blocked by protesters, and she decided to fly back there. It was really her only choice, that or stay in La Paz until the roads gets opened. One of the first things I did in La Paz was to drink some mate, and it helped fend off the altitude sickness for the day, although the next morning in the airport, it hit me hard, headache and severe feeling of sickness, again I turned to the 'mate de coca' for a remedy, and wallah in five minutes the symptoms disappeared. This time I flew with Taca airline, the Peruvian airline, going through Lima, which proved no more reliable than LAB, as my flight from Lima to Bogotá, was delayed by five hours, arriving in the evening, instead of the morning, which interfered with some plans I had, and made things a bit more interesting the next day...