On the road again

For those of you who haven't heard the crazy plan born of a whim back in October, I'm heading up through Peru, Ecuador and Colombia to catch a flight out of Bogotá on the 20th of November. It should be an adventure since I only have three weeks and a lot of heavy bags to remind me how long I've been down here.

I've made it to Cuenca after zooming through Perú on a 27-hour bus and a 31-hour bus (both were supposed to be 26 hours). It's not as bad as it sounds -- I met a fun traveling crew made up of a Bolivian, a Colombian, a Peruvian and a German, watched a ton of bad movies dubbed in Spanish, ate chicken for two days straight and saw just about all of the surreal Peruvian coast.

Goodbyes were really hard, but in the end it did feel like the time to take off, and it's somewhat of a relief to be on the road and not just anticipating it. Just to do some sort of send-off:


Some things I learned in Bolivia:
latin american spanish in all its glory
the true meaning of FOLKdance, from and for the people
going somewhere is not so much about the destination, but about the joooouuuurney, so never ever make travel itineraries and go with the flow
patience, infinite patience in all things is a virtue
to talk openly about bowel movements
to not depend on written information or order -- that is, to always ask questions to get around
History is not easily forgotten and social revolution is more complicated than fresh faces and unexpected leaders. Pessimism, blame, disappointment after disappointment... things aren't going to be easy for Bolivia.


What I'll most miss:
family and friends
the folkdances and standard tunes that come out at every gathering and how much everyone still loves them... and that everyone knows the dances!
Quechua
speaking Spanish
egg sandwiches for 2 bs on the street corner in the middle of the night (or street food in general)
the high altitude rural night sky with more stars than imaginable
folk music - charangos, quenas, zampoñas...
taxi drivers - so friendly and talkative
being woken up every morning to eat breakfast so that I wouldn't eat alone. eating in a group and arguing during lunch.
dancing with my buddy Carlitos in the kitchen
artesanía
being called Kris (Krees), mamita, waway, kachamosa
mountains, hardcore Bolivia style
humintas, api, pastel, sopa de maní, choclo, yuca, fresh quesillo, chupando (sucking) oranges and mangos
cumbia and latin pop (no lie)
resourcefulness and the spirit of repair and do it yourself. so many people who know how to make clothes, fix a shoe, use something until it's reeeeeally broken, not just throw it out when it gets old.


And just a few of the things I'm most looking forward to back in the patria:
family and friends
cooking
hot showers and water pressure
a cat in the house and cats in general that don't carry the freaky disease that causes birth defects in women that pet them
kayak
bike
piano
dad salad, bagels, loose tea and my teapot, sourdough bread, blueberries
not being treated differently for being a woman/foreigner
the ocean

Guess who got to dance in an entrada this weekend! And in tinkus!

Entradas are epic parades of dance throughout the city that happen on occasions like Carnival and important saint days in Bolivia. Cochabamba has a third entrada put on annually by the university, where different schools and departments form dance “fraternities” and parade throughout the city.

I’ve longed to dance in an entrada – but I was out of the country for Carnival, working too hard in the weeks before the August Virgin of Urkupiña entrada, and had been in Argentina during the weeks before this entrada, my last chance. Looked hopeless, but three days before the entrada, my host sister Helen dragged me to the agriculture department, where a friend of a friend told us that we would find a very welcoming tinkus fraternity. We “learned” six different steps in those three days, rented our dresses, and became part of the group.

Tinku means “encounter” in Quechua, and the dance is based on a traditional form of controlled ritual fighting in the Potosí department of Bolivia. The dance is animated, very low to the ground, and extremely energetic.

The experience was amazing – I almost backed out at the last minute due to some nasty migraines and really really hot weather recently, but didn’t want to give up the chance. Luckily, we didn’t start parading until the sun was already going down. The leaders of the group signal which steps to do and the intensity by whistling, so we were pretty much moving the whole 3 kilometer route (felt much longer). The energy was amazing, both with the crowd along the route and the support of the other dancers. By far one of the most amazing things I’ve done here, despite the nasty blisters all over the bottom of my feet! This is what my feet looked like at the end of the night:

Here's some stage tinku to get an idea of the style: