Bolivia: Reflected glory
Bolivia: Reflected glory
With a history shaped by silver, the Incas and the conquistadors, high-altitude life on the Bolivian Altiplano can be as magical as the optical illusions created by its mirrored salt lakes
By Nigel Richardson. Published on 27th April 2016
[font size=1]
Llamas, Salar de Uyuni. Image: Phil Clarke-Hill
[/font]
We’re in one of those markets that reveal the strange backstories and mindsets of the local culture. What are those things? I ask my guide, René Silva. He’s a mistizo — half white, of Iberian descent); half Jalq’a, an indigenous people renowned for their textiles. I’m pointing at small cardboard tubes, displayed next to bundles of cigarettes bulging with black tobacco. “Cohetes,” he replies. “Explosiónes.”
Rockets? Explosions? Perhaps they’re used to light cigarettes — a sort of cross between a match and a lighter. But no — René explains they’re explosive devices that the campesinos (farmers) fire at hailstones and other undesirable weather events to prevent damage to their crops. Do they work? “Sure,” says René.
This is the weekly market in the village of Tarabuco, in Bolivia’s Altiplano (‘High Plain’). I’m feeling giddy, not just with the crystalline sunlight and the discombobulating effects of altitude (we’re at 11,000ft), but with a sense of cultural displacement. Stretching round the main square are stalls selling Jalq’a weavings (the patterns are pretty weird: fabulous birds and beasts with multiple limbs and disfigured heads), sandals made from old rubber tyres, and chess sets featuring Incas and conquistadors. In the backstreets, a religious fanatic is bellowing through a megaphone — I think he’s calling out winning lottery numbers, till I notice no one is listening — while shoppers select coca leaves as if deliberating over single malt whisky. Not just the leaves, which are dispensed from green sacks and come in different grades, but the catalysers — chalky sweets that bring out the full effect. “You chew them with the coca and they release the 14 elements,” says René. “The saliva also has an effect. It’s like a laboratory in your mouth.”
As we talk, a campesino appears, buys a bag of leaves, bundles it into his blanket, which he throws over his shoulder, and ambles off, his cheek bulging with a wad. And it strikes me that this man is a thousand or more years old — not the biological individual, of course, but everything that he represents: his language (Quechua, also spoken by the Incas); his dress of layered fabrics; his high-cheekboned features, burnished by warm sun through thin air; not to mention the coca habit, which René explains thusly: “For campesinos who are sad and worried, it makes them think more clearly.”
More:
http://www.natgeotraveller.co.uk/destinations/south-central-america/bolivia/bolivia-reflected-glory/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+NatGeoTraveller+%28National+Geographic+Traveller+%28UK%29%29
