Crossing into Bolivia and Tarija
2 march 2001
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
