Bolivia

Our trip to Bolivia was somewhat of a let down. When Cosmo picked us up bright and early for our trip to Bolivia, I had so many cool expectations. I had imagined brightly colored textiles, women with long black braids and broad faces, with babies wrapped on their backs, weaving beautiful rugs…this wasn’t exactly what we encountered.
We piled into the red VW Golf and flew to a Shell gas station to fuel up (you think gas is expensive in the states? Try six bucks a gallon!). The trip would take about three hours. The road had the familiar bumps I’ve come to associate with Brazilian roads, but instead of winding, it stretched out straight in front of us, like a long zipper. We were flanked with wide open farm land, accented with white cows. I noticed there were tall trees with plumage at the very top. A tree that looked as if it was once part of the forest canopy, but looked naked, vulnerable, standing by themselves dotting the horizon.
Cosmo noticed me looking at the trees and told us that Brazil passed a law, making it illegal to cut down the castanha tree (the Brazil nut tree). So what we saw, was the deforestation of the jungle, all except the fortunate castanha tree…or the not so fortunate, if you ask me.
I couldn’t wait to get to Bolivia and buy fresh tortillas. Once we got to the border town of Cobija, we stopped at a restaurant for a bite to eat. Cosmo had never heard of tortillas and Matthew asked the waiter if they had them in Bolivia. He said yes, and that got us even more excited. Its funny but before we left the states, I would have never expected to miss tortillas!! I guess, for us, it is a household staple. Grace insists on having quesadillas so I have to make her a grill cheese sandwich, cut off the crusts and tell her its made with Brazilian tortillas! The food at the restaurant was Brazilian food, which was a disappointment I guess it’s the same in all border towns, the borders become blurred after while (a good example of this would be San Ysidro).
After lunch, Cosmo took us to the center of town, where all the action was. My heart sank as we drove down the street and I looked out the window. What I saw was basically Tijuana for Brazilians. For those of you not familiar with Southern California, Tijuana is where Californians go to find a plethora of “brand name“ items at a fraction of the price. I parentheses brand name, because its assumed that these items are forgeries. We walked down one side of the street filled with one shop after another selling the same things, designer perfumes, kitchen wares, toys and electronics, oh and least not, fake Christmas trees adorned with snow spray… what a bummer. Although, I did see one older woman with long braids down her back, that were tied together and dreaded out at the bottom. I imagined she had never cut her hair, this was a far cry from what I had imagined. I guess nothing is ever how we imagine it to be, right?
Anyhow, we did our best to buy up crap we didn’t need and settled for the small indigenous experience of drinking fresh squeezed orange juice from a woman peeling and squeezing on the corner. She had a hand crank peeler, which cut the peel into one long curling strip as she churned the hand crank. It made for a lovely orange colored fringe around her cart. I imagine that she dries the peels and uses them for tea.
We ended our trip by purchasing about 15 pirated DVDs, and we’re excited at the prospect of watching Pirates of the Caribbean II. However, once home, only five of the fifteen DVDs worked (serves us right for buying pirated copies!)…that pretty much sums up our trip to Bolivia.