I felt bad for having such lazy days lately that I decided to thrust myself headfirst into some culture and spend a day and a night exploring the nearby historical Jesuit Missions. Jon who wasn't feeling bad about having such lazy days, was less enthused and decided to stay behind and watch 'I am Legend'. So I caught the train to the Missions in San Jose. It went a little something like this:
*Go to train station two days before to book ticket. Booking office closed until day of departure.
*Wake super early to go back to the train station the day of departure and book tickets. Tickets sold out on the regular train so I travel on the more expensive train.
*10 hours next to 'Snorie-MacGee' on a train where I don't read my National Geographic TOO much because it's the only English literature I have left.
*Get off the train and realize I've left my National Geographic on the train
*Cant find the hotel in the Lonely Planet. It's now 22'30.
*Go to another hotel - Booked out.
*Go to another hotel - Too expensive
*Go to another hotel - Booked out.
*Go to another hotel - Too expensive
*Go to another hotel - Too expensive, but considering it's 00'30 I bite the bullet and sleep the night.
*Don't sleep because I'm trying to swat a mosquito that taunts me with it's buzzing all night long.
*Wake and walk down to the Mission Compound. It's beautiful, but I see everything there is to see in an hour.
*Now have to kill 15h until my train arrives
*The rest of my day is filled with a combination of eating very slowly, going for walks in random directions, photographic statues of naked nymphs on a road to nowhere, escaping stray dogs, sleeping on park benches, reading my Bolivia Lonely Planet until my eyes bleed and walking around town trying to find places in my Lonely Planet that clearly don't exist.
*Get back into Santa Cruz and promise I'll never leave Jon again.
*Act manly to counteract the girlishness of what I just said
Despite the fact I can't remember if I've ever been that bored before, I really enjoyed it. The Jesuit Church was really beautiful and beyond the physical beauty, it was the non-conforming nature of the Jesuits that really captivates you. Whilst every other colonial presence saw themselves as being above the locals, the Jesuits integrated with the locals and worked towards a better future by sharing knowledge and treating each other as equals.
In Samaipata we bumped into Steven and Vicky, two English travelers that were walking around aimlessly and we became friends. It's good to know that there are other people that just walk around with no real purpose, because we were beginning to think it was just us. Together we headed off to the pre-Inca sight of El Fuerte. It's a gigantic slab of natural rock in the ground that someone or something carved pictures into. A lot of it looks like the set of a film, there are doorways and windows carved into it, but they don't go anywhere. On the top there are two long carved channels, obviously they were used as an Alien spaceship launching pad. Because when there's no logical explanation, it has to be Aliens.
Later that night we decided to head down to the local traveling Carnival and I must say it was a treat. Not for it's wow factor, but rather it's pathetic factor. It started with a lame dance routine where the dancers weren't completely in sync with each other. The juggler couldn't juggle, and seemed to think the best way to cover his appalling juggling ability was to change the objects he was juggling - He dropped fire sticks. The clowns might have been funny if we could understand them, and the ringmaster was so serious in everything he did it just made us laugh (He was also the juggler). The real spectacle of the night was the knife thrower who was legitimately scary because it seemed likely that she may actually kill someone. When she invited someone from the audience up she missed his face by mere millimeters.
We'd been walking around Samapita all day looking for a place to eat. Everything shuts here at really random hours. I think they all take a siesta ever odd hour of the day. Even the resteraunts take a siesta, which makes no sense at all, so finding a place to eat was a difficulty. We passed a place that looked closed, but I insisted and called out "hola" though the closed fence. We waited and when nothing happened we started to move along. Then a voice came from behind us, a frail old man was at the gate answering our call. We asked if he was open for lunch and his face lit up.
Upon entering his cafe we realized he had just converted his lounge room into a cafe. The TV was showing some Bolivian traditional music filmed in a rather hilarious (all be it not intentional I'm sure) style. There were some tiny model boats he's created scattered around the plastic table and chairs next to the couch. He was delighted that we decided to choose his humble abode to eat and proceeded to tell us stores about how he was a famous boxer in his youth and how his wife had been a model in Europe. He was a very sweet old man with a heart of gold, and he apologized numerously for his bad english even though it was much better than all of out spanish put together.
We headed down the street where we came across a bar/ disco/ cinema, that again is was just the front room of someone's house that had been converted into a disco, complete with flashing laser lights and a smoke machine on full blast. We were the only ones in the entire place. We were there to watch the movie 'Che', since we were only a stones throw away from where he was murdered, and we wanted to get a bit more of a back story before arriving. The cinema was quite impressive, it was just another room with some chairs and a huge screen on the wall, but it was the little things that made it so special. Like the fact that the projectionist/ usher/ bar man screened a short film and then chucked on a few trailers before the main feature began.
A long bumpy ride to Vallegrande and La Higuera was only broken up by a rock that apparently looks exactly like Che's beret. Someone even stuck a large silver star in the middle, but it kept getting stolen, so now it's replaced by a small one. We stopped off at the hill where he had his famous last stand before being captured, and the school room where he was famously quoted as saying “I know you are here to kill me. Shoot, coward, you are only going to kill a man.” right before he was murdered by the CIA. The hospital laundry where his lifeless body was displayed to the media of the world was covered in graffiti a testament to how many people believed in the cause that he fought and died for.
His plan for a liberated South America was supposedly to start in Bolivia, located in the heart of South America where they would have a good base to liberate the surrounding countries, but instead of being greeted with reverence, he was greeted with suspicion, not even the local Communist party took up his cause. This allowed the intimidated CIA to locate him and murder him, Ernesto Guevara, a man not of American origins, who was not fighting in America, a man who simply believed there was a better way of life. Why did they think that by killing him, he would cease to exist as a fighter? ... Today he is in every place, wherever there is a just cause to defend. It's disappointing to think that fifty years on, America hasn't changed. She is still tracking down and killing anyone that opposes her, refusing to respect the very values that make up the pillars of her society.
"The life of a single human being is worth a million times more than all the property of the richest man on earth" - Ernesto "Che" Guevara, 1928-1967. Rest in Peace.
Alexander
JON'S FOOTNOTE:
*I am Legend was pretty good.
*The boxer man made me feel his muscle (in his arms).
*Clowns that speak English are terrifying.
*Clowns who don't speak English are even more insanely frightening.
*A monkey licked my neck.
*Isn't it interesting that Che Guevara stood against Capitalism in all forms, and now his image is the most recognized image in the world. I wonder how much money his image has made? If he were alive do you think he'd sue?
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