Bolivia Diaries: Day 3, Part 2 - My Host Family in Santiago de Okola

In October 2010, I spent 2 weeks in Bolivia learning about their food and agriculture. I ended up getting a lot more than I bargained for out of the trip, including learning why the rainforest is being destroyed, how eco-tourism might save it, how Bolivia fits into the drug trade (and what the US does to try to stop cocaine production), and how global warming has already impacted Bolivia.

On my third day in the country, we drove to the community of Santiago de Okola, on the northeastern shore of Lake Titicaca. The people of Santiago de Okola are Aymara, a culture that pre-dates the Incas in the Andes. They Aymara were a warlike people whose culture centered around Lake Titicaca from the late 1100s until the 1500s. They were conquered by the Incas, shortly before the Spanish showed up in Bolivia. Today, Aymara is one of the major languages spoken in Bolivia (Quechua, the Incan language, is the other major indigenous language still spoken), and the current President of Bolivia, Evo Morales, is Aymara. This diary covers the family I stayed with and their home. (I hope you like adorable pictures of week old lambs...)



I was both excited and hesitant to visit Santiago de Okola. I had been assured that the accommodations would be "rustic." In preparation, I took what I assumed would be my last shower for a few days, charged all of my electronic devices, and stocked up on bottled water. What I should have brought, but didn't, was a flashlight.

On the way, there we were lucky enough to get a glimpse of the wild flamingos that live in Lake Titicaca.


My first view of Lake Titicaca


Those pink things in the distance are totally flamingos.


My first view of Sleeping Dragon, the mountain next to Santiago de Okola

When we arrived, we were welcomed by the community leader, Don Tomas, the head of the Agricultural Syndicate, Don Juan, and the town's spiritual leader. Then we were each assigned a family to stay with. My room mate, Tanya, and I were split up in what turned out to be a lucky (for me) turn of events. She went with a woman named Doña Lucia, and I went next door to a man name Don Pasqual. Doña Lucia was as nice as can be, but spoke almost no Spanish. As luck would have it, Tanya spoke a few words of Aymara. But I sure as heck did not. I'm lucky when I can communicate effectively in Spanish!

Both Don Pasqual and Doña Lucia lived near the "beach" (the shore of Lake Titicaca). Each member of the community who hosted us had a special bedroom set aside for their guests. My room, which had two beds, was quite cozy and well-decorated. The room had a cement floor that was covered in beautiful Andean rugs, two beds that were each covered in incredibly warm, woven blankets, a small table, a window, and a compact fluorescent lightbulb.

The homes were all made of adobe, with either thatched or corrugated tin roofs. Don Pasqual's house had maybe four rooms total or so, including a kitchen, a storage room, and the room where he lived. Separately, he had a small bathroom that contained a hole in the ground and a trash can (for used toilet paper) inside and running water to wash one's hands outside. The bathroom was provisioned with such luxuries as toilet paper, soap, and a mirror, and I was grateful for all three.


The part of Don Pasqual's home where I stayed.


My room


Another part of the house, made of adobe


The bathroom


View of Lake Titicaca from Don Pasqual's house

Don Pasqual told me he has 9 kids (3 boys, 6 girls) and 41 grandkids. All of his children are grown and no longer live with him, but I met one daughter and four grandchildren during the few days I stayed with him. The planting season had not started yet when I visited because the rains are late this year, but I did get to see Don Pasqual's livestock. He has a hen and a rooster, two pigs, two dairy cows, several guinea pigs, and 14 sheep (11 grown and 3 babies). Several of the adult sheep are still pregnant and he told me he's got more lambs on the way in the next month.

I assume the pigs are for his family's personal consumption (he told me that the pigs are six months old, making them very slow growing compared to U.S. factory farmed pigs that would already be turned into ham and bacon by that point). The sheep, on the other hand, are for home consumption and for sale. He slaughters lambs at one year of age, but sometimes he also eats or sells grown sheep for meat too. He shears his sheep annually, in February, for wool.

Oh, and the guinea pigs? Those aren't pets; they're food. They live in the kitchen. Peruvians are more into eating guinea pigs than Bolivians, but I guess it's done in both countries. In Peru, the word for guinea pig is "cuy," but in Bolivia they are often referred to as bunnies ("conejo") or "conejo cuy." Next door, Lucia also raises guinea pigs, as well as two pigs and a bull.


Does this make you hungry?

The animals spend their nights in homemade pens made from mud and rocks in front of Don Pasqual's house. In the morning, each animal has a leash put on and then they are led out to pasture, where the leashes are staked into the ground. There's not much to eat this time of year, and I saw the sheep very selectively eating only the few, tiny green plants and skipping over the dead straw in the field. Families typically also keep haystacks to feed their animals as well. After harvesting the grains they grow each year, the remainder of the plant is kept as animal feed.


Ham and Bacon, drinking from a puddle


The pigs in the field in front of Don Pasqual's home


The alarm cock


Don Pasqual's granddaughter holding a lamb. Of course I took this opportunity to walk over and pet the baby.


Mama and Baby


Milk, please!


The baby is so young, you can still see his umbilical cord


Awwww






Baby lamb (one week old), standing in between Mom and Dad


Don Pasqual's 13-year-old granddaughter, removing the leashes from the sheep at the end of the day


See the length of that tail? In the U.S. sheep often have their tails cropped


A cactus at Don Pasqual's house. He told me they eat the fruit in January and February, but they don't eat the cactus itself.

At dinner time, I went over to Lucia's, where she had prepared a delicious soup and a main course of beef over a plate of rice and carrots, with potatoes. I ate the soup, some of the potatoes, most of the carrots, and none of the beef.


Delicious soup, made with chard, carrots, and potatoes.


The main course, AFTER I ate it. It looked pretty similar to this before I ate it, with a few extra potatoes on the plate.


Lucia's bull

Bolivia Diaries: Day 3, Part 1 - DDT For Sale

This picture speaks for itself:



This diary covers the town of Achacachi, a small town in the Bolivian highlands where our group stopped for a bathroom break while en route to Santiago de Okola, an indigenous community on the northern shore of Lake Titicaca that we spent a few days with. I took the picture of the DDT for sale in Achacachi. Note that Achacach is nowhere near the part of Bolivia that has malaria.

Achacachi is a town in the between La Paz and Lake Titicaca with a population of 20,000 and a soccer stadium (covered in brilliantly green astroturf) that seats 20,000. It's known for being a town of warriors. I took several pictures of the shops on the main street. As you'll see, there's an awful lot of junk food for sale and relatively little fruit in comparison.


The main street

What I saw in Achacachi - and elsewhere in Bolivia - reflects the history of U.S. "aid" to Bolivia over the past 60 years. The Bolivian revolution was in 1952. A coalition of indigenous campesinos and miners were important in bringing about the revolution and installing the revolutionary party, the MNR. In 1953, the MNR instituted land reform, breaking up the haciendas and giving land to the peasants.

The U.S., watching this, decided that the MNR was anti-communist enough to merit support. Some believe that the land reform resulted in reduced food production. Others say that is not true, but once the peasants were free to farm their own lands, they began eating more than before, thus leaving less food for the cities. I tend to believe the latter. One way or another, there were urban food shortages, and the U.S. stepped in to prevent any sort of instability due to lack of food.

Bolivia was a major recipient of U.S. food aid, including an awful lot of wheat. Wheat was not an Andean food at all, but the U.S. wheat imports helped Bolivians develop a taste for it. The impact is clear today. Decades after Bolivia received so much U.S. wheat, bread made from refined wheat flour is a staple there. The pictures of rolls for sale below are representative of what I saw in practically every city I visited. These same rolls showed up on our table nearly three meals a day as well. Needless to say, they aren't terribly nutritious.


Rolls for sale


And more...

In addition to the rolls, I saw stores selling every sort of junk food. There was one store that literally sold nothing but soda. And, as you'll see, there was one lone fruit stand among the junk.


Soda


Junk


More junk


Want some chicken? No idea how long it's been sitting out.


Fruit

Food was not the only type of aid Bolivia received from the U.S. during the Cold War. We also sent over massive amounts of agricultural aid. The introduction of "modern" farming with pesticides, fertilizers, and heavy machinery made an impact still apparent today. Tractor after tractor rolled through the main street of Achacachi while we were there. Across from where we parked, I spotted an agrochemical store and immediately got to work taking pictures. (The store also advertises that it sells seeds, although I didn't see any.)

In the front of the store, there were large bags of nitrogen fertilizer as well as a spray application device that I've seen used in Latin America to apply pesticides. I asked if people used any protective clothing while they sprayed pesticides, and the people in the store told me no. (However, I did not see anyone applying pesticides in Bolivia, so I cannot verify this.)

Inside, there was a shelf of pesticides and animal drugs behind the counter. The products included: Ridomil, Monitor (Methamidophos), Lorsban (Chlorpyrifos), Tamaron (Methamidophos), Baygon (Propoxur), AquaMaster, Bonanza (Trifluralin and naphthalene), Arena (Clothianidin), Malezil (Paraquat), Gramaxone (Paraquat), Bravonil (Chlorothalonil), Reamizona, Garrapata, and, of course, DDT. You can see a full list of the registered pesticides in Bolivia here. What is most shocking here is the DDT, not only because it's there and easy to get, but also because this is NOT a malarial region at all, so it's clearly not being used to control malaria. This is primarily a potato growing region.

Once we got to Santiago de Okola, we were able to discuss agriculture and the history of the Green Revolution with the farmers there. When I write about their agriculture, I will share what they said.


Your local agrochemical dealer


Need any pesticides? Fertilizer?


Paraquat (Gramaxone): 4 out of 5 suicidal farmers choose Paraquat! Fast acting on weeds AND humans.

Bolivia Diaries: Day 2 - Tiahuanaco Part 2

My second day in Bolivia, I visited the ancient ruins at Tiahuanaco. You can see a photo tour of the site in Part 1. This day will focus more on the agriculture of Tiahuanaco, as well as our group's activities after lunch (visiting Tiahuanaco's museum).

Agriculture in Tiahuanaco
Tiahuanaco culture developed an amazing, advanced agricultural system while living in a very harsh climate in the Andean altiplano (high plain), at about 12,000 - 13,000 feet above sea level. The area near Tiahuanaco is classified as wet puna, which contrasts with the dry puna environment to the south. The big difference is Lake Titicaca, which provides warmth and humidity in the Tiahuanaco area. They have a dry season and a wet season, with the rains beginning in the spring. Their agricultural system, which you can see in the picture below, is referred to as "raised fields." I've also seen it called "Waru-Waru" and I've seen one source that said the Incas also used this agricultural system, several hundred years after the end of Tiahuanaco culture.

The system is characterized by raised fields separated by canals. The rainwater is channeled into the canals, preventing flooding during the wet season. In the dry season, muck is taken from the canals and applied to the fields as fertilizer. In the picture below, you can kind of see the raised fields, separated by parallel canals in the far righthand side, beyond the area of Tiahuanaco's temples.


Raised fields

I did not see any of this style of agriculture practiced in Bolivia today, but I found a reference in Miguel Altieri's book (quoted below) about efforts to use raised fields in modern day Peru:

The combination of raised beds and canals has proved to have remarkably sophisticated environmental effects. During droughts, moisture from the canals slowly ascends to the roots by capillary action, and during floods, the furrows drain away excess runoff. Waru-warus also reduce the impact of extremes of temperature. Water in the canals absorbs the sun's heat by day and radiates it back by night, thereby helping protect crops against frost. On the raised beds, night time temperatures can be several degrees higher than in the surrounding region. The system also maintains its own soil fertility. In the canals, silt, sediment, algae, and plant and animal remains decay into a nutrient-rich muck which can be dug out seasonally and added to the raised beds. Soil analysis conducted on samples from reconstructed waru-waru showed increased levels of nitrate nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium as well as a ph ranging from 4.8-6.5, optimal for potato growth.

From Agroecology: The Science of Sustainable Agriculture by Miguel Altieri, p 171-173.

The crops grown in the Lake Titicaca area at the time of Tiahuanco would have likely been potatoes, quinoa, and some other grains and tubers. I ate one grain called cañawa, and a tuber called oka. Another food eaten in this area is tarwi, a legume grown in a lupine plant. Last, corn reached the Andes from Mesoamerica in the pre-Columbian period and I believe they could have grown it in this region. They would have also had llamas and alpacas during Tiahuanaco times. Today this area is a heavy cow's milk cheese producing region and they also raise a lot of sheep with a few pigs and chickens here and there.


Our lunch: Quinoa Soup with local cheese and fried shreds of potato on top. The main course was your choice of llama or locally-caught trout. I risked all of the mining pollution to try the trout, which was delicious. (Vegetarianism in Bolivia isn't terribly easy unless you consider occasional starvation as an option. I didn't. I also felt it was important to try the locally and sustainably produced food, including non-vegetarian items.)

After lunch, we headed to the Tiahuanaco museum, which was absolutely wonderful. They showed locally grown corn (see the picture below and notice how tiny the ears are!), grains like quinoa and cañawa, tarwi (which I took a picture of), and methods of preserving potatoes, such as chuño, a type of dehydrated potato that is still made and eaten today. Chuño, I've decided, is an acquired taste that is best enjoyed in a soup called chairo where it is cut into little bits and heavily flavored so you can't taste it.

At the beginning, the museum showed a map of Bolivia's topography. You can see the altiplano on the left, bordered by two mountain ranges of the Andes. They also had a fantastic chart that lined up Tiahuanaco and other pre-Columbian civilizations with the civilizations of Eurasia.

Most of the museum showed pottery of the Tiahuanaco culture and other pre-Columbian Andean civilizations. The pottery of the first epochs of Tiahuanaco were quite simple, but they got very complex and ornate (and quite impressive, when compared with the dilapidated stones and broken temples found outside). They showed some early textiles, driving home how advanced Andean cultures have been with textiles for so much of their history. And they showed the pins women used to tie their awayos, the woven clothes used by cholita women to carry their stuff or their babies around (see the picture at the bottom of the cholitas in El Alto). I find it remarkable how far back awayos date and that they are still used extensively today as well. (Today the women use large safety pins to fasten their awayos instead of the pins we saw in the Tiahuanaco museum.)


A map of Bolivia, with the top cut off. But the important part of this map is that it shows topography, and the missing part is the department of Pando in the Amazonian lowlands.


Andean corn


Tarwi, a legume from a lupine plant

After the museum, it was time for shopping. I saw a cholita woman spinning wool into yarn and asked to take a picture. She said only if I buy something. I bought alpaca sweaters for my whole family, and then took the picture shown below. Then we got to talking and found out that we're the same age. What different lives we lead!


A chola woman spinning wool into yarn by hand

After everyone finished shopping, we got in our minibus and headed back to La Paz, via El Alto (a large city that sits just above La Paz). In El Alto, we happened upon a wonderful festival, which I posted pictures of here. Here's one last picture I took during that drive:


Cholitas watching the festival we passed on the way home in the city of El Alto

Bolivia Diaries: Day 2 - Tiahuanaco Part 1

Our trip began with a tour of La Paz that I missed because I was held up in Mexico. The next day, however, I joined the group for a trip to Tiahuanaco, the center of a major ancient Andean civilization, located near Lake Titicaca. We had the good fortune of being led by an archaeologist named Alejandro who had previous worked on excavations at Tiahuanaco and thus knows the place inside and out. I was skeptical of taking "time out" from visiting agricultural sites to see ancient ruins, but it turned out that the trip to Tiahuanaco was incredibly important in setting the foundation for the trip. Once you learn about Andean culture as it was 1000 years ago (or more), then you have a context to understand Andean culture today - and you know how truly old so many things here really are.

I'm splitting this into two diaries. The first will cover a tour of the area of Tiahuanaco with an explanation of everything and how it relates to past and present Andean cosmology. The second will be more focused on agriculture and will follow what our group did after lunch, when we went into the museum to learn more about Tiahuanaco culture.

I took pictures as we drove of the adobe homes we passed and the haystacks next to them. We saw tons of cows (mostly Holstein) and sheep, but not a single camelid. As it turns out, Lake Titicaca provides warmth and humidity to the northern part of Bolivia's altiplano (high plain), allowing both sheep and cattle to thrive, along with crops like quinoa, potatoes, barley, fava beans, and oats. After grain is harvested, the leftover parts of the plant are gathered as straw and fed to animals.

We heard again and again that the winter came late this year, with the first snow at the very end of winter instead of the beginning, and only "one and a half" snows (one heavy and one light) instead of the usual five. Normally the rains would have started by early October, but they hadn't yet. Thus, the land we passed was bone dry, covered in what appeared to be dead grasses, and the crops weren't growing yet either.



The altiplano


Another look at the altiplano


An altiplano home with a haystack inside its yard


A home on the altiplano


Another haystack


An indigenous woman (cholita) selling a favorite Andean food by the side of the road near a toll booth. The food is made of dried peaches boiled in water with cinnamon sticks and sugar.

Lloco Lloco
We began with a stop in a place called Lloco lloco, on the top of a hill. In the distance, we could see the city of El Alto (near La Paz). In the other direction, we could see Lake Titicaca. Because the lowlands of Bolivia are in the midst of the "burning season," the air in the altiplano was full of smoke, making it difficult to see the snow covered Andes.

Directly in front of us, we saw various small fields that were used for agriculture. Prior to the 1952 Revolution, much of the land was divided into haciendas. The revolution brought with it land reforms, giving the peasants their own land. With each generation, these plots get split between siblings, making them often very small today. These small plots are referred to as "minifundios." The way food is grown today is very different from the sophisticated system developed in the Tiahuanako era.


The view from Lloco lloco

In the indigenous tradition, the tops of mountains are sacred - including Lloco lloco. Near where we stood, we saw the burnt remains where several people had made offerings to Pachamama (Mother Earth). Distinguishable among the remains was an orange peel and a soda bottle. Apparently, Pachamama is a bit of a bad girl, because I learned later that it's typical for offerings to include booze, coca, and cigarettes.


An offering


Another offering

Tiahuanaco
The civilization of Tiahuanaco is divided into five different periods. From 1500 BC to 45 AD (Epochs I and II), the civilization was quite small. Epoch III (45 AD to 700 AD) is considered "urban," when the site grew quite a bit. The last two Epochs (IV and V) are called Expansive, when Tiahuanaco culture influenced a large area extending from Peru to northern Argentina (700-1200).

At first, it was thought that Tiahuanaco culture expanded militarily, but now that does not seem to be the case. Instead, it seems that their religion, pottery, and agricultural system spread throughout the area, and perhaps their control was religious and not based on military might. It is also thought that Tiahuanaco itself is not what we think of as a permanently settled city. It was more of a place where people came for pilgrimages. At the time, it would have been incredibly impressive to anyone who saw it. It's also important to keep in mind that Tiahuanaco evolved and changed over time, and all of the elements of the site that we see today were not present throughout the civilization's entire history.


A model of the entire city of Tiahuanaco. In the front, you'll see the pyramid. Behind it to the right is the subterranean temple. Directly to the left of that is the other temple we visited.

The Akapana Pyramid
Our tour began with a climb up a pyramid and a most interesting discussion. In the Aymara tradition, the earth is divided into three realms: alakhpacha (heavens/sky); akapacha (the present, on earth); mankapacha (the world underground, belonging to gods that give power to animals and plants). "Pacha" means both space and time. The Aymara, an empire that arose after Tiahuanaco and a culture that thrives today in Bolivia, may or may not be the descendants of the Tiahuanaco civilization. Still, it seems that the idea of these three realms was quite present in Tiahuanaco spirituality.

With this in mind, one can look at the pyramid and see how it includes all three elements, with its entrance on the level ground of the earth, then climbing high towards the sky, and then at the top, there is a dug out area that is below ground to symbolize mankapacha. Unfortunately, we don't know exactly what the mankapacha area truly looked like, since it has been expanded by someone who was looking for riches buried in the pyramid.


The base of the pyramid


A view of Tiahuanaco from atop the pyramid


A stone on the top of the pyramid. The shape carved in here is a commonly used one in Tiahuanaco


The subterranean area on the top of the pyramid


Some remains of houses on the pyramid, probably homes of high priests


Many of the stones of the pyramid have been removed, making it look like a funny shaped hill, but on this side, you can see where some of the stones are still there.

Subterranean Temple
Next, we visited the Subterranean Temple, which basically looked like a big pit from a distance. Inside, the walls were lined with a number of faces, many of which were different from one another. In the center was a big pillar with a face carved into it.


One of the faces in the Subterranean temple


More faces in the Subterranean temple


A pillar in the Subterranean temple with a face.

Another Temple
There's another large temple at Tiahuanaco, one that is above ground instead of below ground, and that's where we went next. I don't have a picture of the entire temple because it is huge. I do, however, have some nice pictures of the drainage system for the temple. This would have been useful during the rainy season, but it might have also been used for "offerings" to Pachamama like urine or vomit. It's reasonably likely that some of the religious ceremonies or festivals took place while all of the participants were drunk off their asses on chicha (an alcoholic beverage).


The side of the temple


The side of the temple, showing its drainage system


The side of the temple, with its drainage system

As we walked around the side of the temple, we saw one of the pillars was carved in the shape of a woman with the tail of a fish. In Andean spirituality, there is an idea similar to Yin and Yang. The yang equivalent is urko, representing male, light, strength, the heavens, and the yin side is uma, representing female, dark, nurturing, and underground. Thus, Tiahuanaco culture often linked women with marine organisms like fish, since they live below the surface of the earth.


A pillar of the temple, which is shaped like a woman with the tail of a fish

Then we walked up to the top of the pyramid, where we saw a carved pillar known as the Ponce Monolith. You might be able to see that the figure is holding a knife in his right hand, and he's holding it with his palm facing outward. This means that he is going to make a sacrifice to the gods. In his other hand, he is holding a sacred glass. The Spanish, of course, tried to exorcise this monolith, so if you look on the side of it, you will see a cross carved in.


The front of the monolith. Couldn't get a good picture with the sun.


The side of the monolith, where, if this were a better picture, you'd see a cross carved in by the Spanish.

Last but not least, we visited the Gate of the Sun. This is enormous, and that's more or less most of what I have to say about it. It might sound like I'm being glib, but considering that this is an enormous, heavy hunk of rock that was moved here and carved by a people that did not have wheels or horses, its size is quite significant. Its location now is not necessarily the original location. Carved into it is the Sun God in the top center.


The Gate of the Sun

One last important point to make is that during the many centuries of Tiahuanaco culture, they were tearing down and building new temples and structures every so often. As such, often temples are built by mismatched rocks that were carved to be part of other temples and then recycled and fit together as part of a new temple.