The drive from Salta to La Quica on the border was
through beautiful rocky desert and not as hot as it
had been further south.
To our surprise, when we got to La Quica, we were feeling a little strange.
It wasn't really apparent to us that we'd climbed so much but the GPS
said we were at 11,500 feet. We decided to hang at the local Hotel del
Turismo, a municipal hotel, to acclimatize a little. We had the vans
washed, a mechanic made another stab at repairing Tyler's recalcitrant
power steering (It's been leaking very surreptitiously. We just can't
see where the missing fluid is going.) And we vegged out.
We crossed into Villazon, Bolivia on the 21st, pulled over to the
curb to shop for maps, and, as was usual in Brazil, but not in Argentina
and Chile, we immediately drew a crowd, admiring the Westys. We didn't
hang around because we wanted to get to Tarija and everyone had warned
us to 'Cuidado con la lluvia!' and that it would be more likely
to rain in the afternoon, so we hit the road.
This was our first experience with Bolivian roads and, in retrospect,
it wasn't that bad, folks! It was only the dustiest day of the entire
trip so far. (My nice clean van was covered with it, inside and out,
by days end.) And the roads were really only wide enough for one car
to go at a time and there were lots and lots of buses and trucks passing
us so we had to dive to the pathetic little shoulders to get out of
their way and not fall over the edge of a precipice. But, unbeknowst
to me at the time, I hadn't seen nuttin' yet, folks. We arrived in Tarija
in late afternoon, did our normal cirle of the town to get our bearings,
and discovered a wide avenue where grandstands were set up for another
round of Carnaval. We were hungry and pulled into a restaurant right
on the avenue where barbecue was being cooked out front.
Shay jumped out of the van. Somebody heard us speaking English and
walked up to Shay and said, "Eh! You American? Where da f*** you
from?" in a very Brooklyn accent! We all sat down and were entertained
all evening by Dominique, a recent arrival from Nu Yawk. A few minutes
later, a guy pulls over to the curb in a spectacularly clean, bright
yellow '84 Vanagon crewcab! We decided to get together with Ricardo
the next day at his house, just down the street. We made camp just around
the corner from the restaurant in a residential neighborhood.
In Tarija, the men have their day (Copadres) and the women have theirs
(Comadres). That day was Comadres. We drove into the main square to
find an internet café and have a bite to eat. While we were doing
our email, the party started to heat up outside. Pickup trucks with
huge speaker systems circled the square, music blaring. When we left
the café, we saw that the women were gathering at the sidewalk
cafés for a few drinks. Or even more than a few. So we went over,
sat down and ordered a beer. The words comadre and copadre mean more
than a friend, more like an adopted relative or best friend, I guess.
The custom here is that a woman gives a basket with a cake and corn
and other stuff, decorated with balloons and streamers to another woman.
This is an invitation to be her comadre for the following year and to
dance with her in the parade. The recipient of the basket would normally
give the basket back the next year. According to Ricardo, if the basket
isn't returned the following year, the friendship is over. Almost immediately
when I sat down, the party girls came over and grabbed me and handed
me a half glass of beer. They said "We invite you to join us. The
only thing is, at this party, you've got to down the drink at one time."
So, of course, I downed the beer! We chatted for a while and I went
back to the table. I ordered two big bottles of beer - one for us and
one for them. I took one bottle over to their table and said "I
invite you." It was really cool. When we were about to leave, one
of the ladies invited us to join them at their gathering place and walk
to the parade area with them. We said we would try, but we wanted to
get our vans parked for the night and knew it was unlikely we would
drive back into the center to walk with them. Unfortunately, since we
had already grown very fond of Tarija, while we were at the square somebody
broke the wing vent on Tyler's van, trying to get in. They were unsuccessful,
but the window was broken nevertheless. So, back to our campsite near
the avenue we went.
We staked out a sidewalk table at the restaurant, from which we could
see pretty much everything that was going on. We had to walk over to
watch the dancing but the activity behind the scenes in Tarija involved
water play rather than artificial snow! The boys (and men) throw little
fist-sized water balloons at the girls.
Shay and Tyler really got into this game. Unfortunately, (or fortunately
for the girls) their aim was really bad. The barbecue cook, however,
was a different matter. He would stand there very innocently and, when
a target came into range, would whirl around, hit absolutely dead on,
then spin around to his barbecue with the most innocent expression on
his face that they never knew he'd done it. Shay didn't understand that
you needed to be sneaky. At one point, a returning group of Comadres
was walking past the café, their spin on the dance floor over.
Shay was firing madly. One of the girls got reeeeaaaaally PO'd at him
and came over and started smacking him with the comadre basket. She
dropped it in the process and stormed off. I told him he was her comadre
for next year and would have to come back. He tried to be a little sneakier
after that. (Bruising was very minor.)
The next morning we went to fill our propane tanks and to get some
plexiglass put in Tyler's wingvent. The plexiglass project turned out
rather well but, for the first time, I had a serious problem with the
propane filling. As I said in my other post, the valve stuck open and
I had to let an entire tank of propane escape into the air. It turned
out to be a dirty valve due to contamination in the tanks in South America.
After the valve was cleaned by a mechanic, it filled at a much faster
rate than it had before and is now working fine.
Since it was too late to leave Tarija by then, we spent the night
parked at Ricardo's house. We all took a little ride to a nearby small
town, San Lorenzo, I think, had a great pork dinner with huge whole
kernel corn (Said meal is traditionally eaten with your fingers.) and
had some traditional Bolivian pastries for dessert. We especially liked
the empanadas with peach filling. Yum.
We had a terrific time in Tarija and were not happy to
be leaving the next morning but, once again, we were
worried about the rain in the mountains and got a
relatively (for us) early start the next day for
Potosí.
Jeanne
