Bolivia Diaries: Day 9, Part 2 - Jesus Ate Guinea Pig

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.

Our ninth day is difficult to sum up succinctly because we did many small, completely separate and different activities as we traveled from Rurrenabaque to La Paz to Oruro. This diary will cover the various livestock at the airport (YES, the airport!), a visit to some chullpas, and our first stop in Oruro: a surprisingly fascinating church and a market.

My trip was organized by Global Exchange and Food First. You can find out about future Food Sovereignty tours at the link.

The morning of our ninth day began VERY early. Unnecessarily early, as it turned out, once we got to the airport and realized that we had arrived before any of the airport staff. We watched the sun rise over the cows - yes, the cows - on the airfield at the tiny Rurrenabaque airport. There, check-in involves no computers, baggage check involves passing your suitcase to some guys in a room that also serves as the baggage claim (no moving carousels here), and there is no security to speak of.

We waited for the plane, giggling about the airport staff shooing the cows off the field and making jokes like "Hey look, my plane leaves from Gate 1!" (Of course, there's only one gate.) Then a member of our group returned from the window, laughing. "Now they're shooing horses off the field!" A few minutes later: "Now there are pigs!" After all of the livestock had moved out of the way, the incoming plane landed, and we left the Amazon for the Andes once again.


Sunrise at the Rurrenabaque airport


Cows at the airport

Once in La Paz, we had a happy reunion with Gabriel, the Bolivian biologist who had been our guide there for the first part of the trip, who was joining us again. And I had a happy reunion with the airport's ATM machine, since there was no way for me to get cash (and no one takes credit) in Rurrenabaque - or anywhere else between there and La Paz for that matter - and I was nearly out. And then we took off for Oruro.


Lovely, huh? I bet if I ever learn to SCUBA dive there will be Coke and Pepsi ads on the bottom of the sea. They probably have some on the moon, too.


Andes are pretty, don't you think?

Our destination was Sajama National Park, named after the mountain Sajama (which is also the name of the province the park and the mountain are located in), near the Chilean border.

Our first stop for the day were some random chullpas. These are funerary towers that are found all over Bolivia. The corpses found inside are often in the fetal position. There is some folklore that says the chullpa people lived before the sun came to bring light to the earth and when the sun rose for the first time, the chullpa people died of fear.


Chullpas


A chullpa


The entrance to the chullpa


Inside the chullpa (you can see bones in there)


A home and a family that lives next to the chullpas

By the way, if you've gotta go, I recommend going behind the chullpas. There are NO bathrooms and few cities around on these long drives, and there aren't even trees to pee behind.

Our next stop was the city of Curahuara de Carangas, home of a church worth seeing and a market we stopped at. Here are some pictures of the outside of the church, which I believe was constructed in the 16th Century, but the outside isn't the real story. I'll tell you about the inside (where taking pictures was forbidden) below.










Look... the path to the church is in the shape of an Andean cross

The inside of the church was painted wall-to-wall with every Biblical scene you can imagine. They had the birth of Jesus, the Last Supper, the Last Judgement, Noah's Ark, you name it. But these were no ordinary paintings. Oh no. Because the three wisemen came to Bethlehem with llamas. And, at the last supper, Jesus dined on guinea pig and potatoes. The Spanish were in charge when this church was painted (in the 18th century, I believe), but they trained indigenous artists in European painting techniques and it was the indigenous people who actually did the painting.

Better yet, was the Last Judgment scene. It showed Jesus in heaven, with the Sun and the Moon to his left and his right, but at the same height as Jesus himself. This implied that both the sun and the moon are gods equal to Jesus. (The Inca worshiped the Sun and "his sister-bride," the Moon. Incan rulers claimed to descend from the sun and would also marry their sisters. The reason is that the Incan rulers were supposed to be so holy that they did not want to "water down" their holy blood by marrying and having offspring with non-related people or even distant relatives. Only their sisters were holy enough to bear the next heir to the throne.)

What was disturbing were scenes and even a terrifying statue of "San Tiago, Mata Moros" - Saint Tiago, the Moor Killer. Of course, San Tiago was also the Indigenous Bolivian Killer, but that might not have won over so many Incan or Aymara converts so I guess it was left off his resume in the Andes. You might assume that the indigenous people would hate San Tiago - as they heard the Spanish yelling to him as they killed scores of Bolivians in battles - but it was quite the opposite. They figured that this San Tiago guy must be pretty darn powerful and they had really screwed up by not worshiping him. Clearly, that was why they were getting their butts kicked by the Spanish. So the indigenous Bolivians got right on board with San Tiago, in an effort to win his favor and perhaps stop losing to the Spanish all the time.

It was about halfway through the church that altitude sickness hit me. Hard. I walked outside, drank some water, ate what food I had on me, got myself some coca tea, and sat down. While I was out there, I noticed something else. The path leading to the church was a cross... but it was an Andean Cross. And the Andean Cross has NOTHING to do with Jesus. Hehe.

As we were leaving, several of us decided to get a picture of some nearby alpacas (I think?) and our guides promised us for the zillionth time that we would be seeing "literally thousands" of llamas and alpacas. Oruro is much drier than the area near Lake Titicaca we had visited before. The vegetation is considered "dry puna" instead of "wet puna." As you drive from wet puna to dry puna, the change is obvious. Suddenly, you stop seeing cows and sheep and you start seeing llamas and alpacas. The grasses look different too. (And, somehow, all Bolivians seem to have some innate ability to immediately tell the difference between llamas and alpacas, a skill that I do not yet possess.)


Alpacas, I think

Next, we went to a market. It was a market intended for Bolivians, not for foreigners. Most of the items being sold were not terribly appealing to me as a shopper, but they were interesting to me as someone learning about Bolivia's food and agriculture. Many of the first pictures show clothing. I found it fascinating that the traditional cholita clothes are sold alongside with "modern" clothing.


Cholita gear


Cholita gear


Cholita gear


Clothing (non-cholita)


Bulk bags of rice and flour


Athletic shoes and soccer balls


Yarn (much of it was acrylic)


Oranges and bananas


Fruits and veggies


Apples and oranges


Lots and lots of eggs


"Pasankalla," Bolivian sweetened popcorn


Seeds, animal drugs, and agrochemicals


A close up of the animal drugs and agrochemicals


Several varieties of corn and some fava beans


Tanya, our guide, drinking some canawa


Pacay

The picture of the corn was very difficult for me to get. I asked the cholita woman who was selling it if I could take a picture. She did not respond. Then I asked if I could purchase a little of each type of corn so that - once I owned it - I could take a picture. She did not respond. I left.

Then I thought about it. Maybe she only spoke Aymara and did not speak Spanish. It certainly would not be the first time. I went back and showed her my camera and pointed to the corn. She gestured no again. I showed her money. She still refused. At that point our bus driver came to intervene. He was a bit of a weird guy and he'd come in strangely handy before (when I was getting the picture of the DDT in Achacachi).

This time, I explained to him that I wanted a picture and I was willing to buy the corn in order to get it. I went out of my way to compliment what beautiful corn it was, and how wonderful it was to have so many varieties, whereas in the U.S. we do not have such great variety. He somehow got the woman to agree to let me pay her in order to take a picture. I gave 3 Bolivianos to the bus driver, assuming he would give her the proper amount. She moved far away from the corn to be sure she wasn't in the picture, and I got my picture. Then the bus driver handed her 1 B and gave me the rest back.

Once we got back to the bus, everyone came together for a snack. Gabriel had purchased locally made cheese, bread, pacay, and a cooked, dried, and powdered form of canawa (a local grain) that is made into a beverage by mixing it with water (usually sweetened with sugar). Gabriel got me to try the pacay but failed to mention it was called "ice cream bean" in English, a detail that would have made me much more enthusiastic about it. It tasted OK. We had a little feast in our minibus, then piled back in, and kept driving toward Sajama.

Bolivia Diaries: Day 9, Part 1 - USAID and Anti-USAID

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.

Our ninth day is difficult to sum up succinctly because we did many small, completely separate and different activities as we traveled from Rurrenabaque to La Paz to Oruro. To start, I'd like to just share this mini-diary about USAID's presence in Bolivia.

My trip was organized by Global Exchange and Food First. You can find out about future Food Sovereignty tours at the link.

All over Bolivia, you can see signs touting various USAID projects. Some of these signs are clearly old and faded so much you can no longer read them. Others are clear as day. After passing them with no opportunity to get a picture since literally the second day of my trip, I finally got one - actually two - on the way out of Sapecho:



The first sign says that USAID built the government building for this community. The second, newer one says that USAID improved the potable water system here. Sounds pretty good, right?

There's been some tension over USAID in Bolivia lately. In the department north of La Paz, Pando, there was an accusation that USAID was working against the government of Bolivia, and the mayors of Pando kicked USAID out of their department. Then the President and Vice President of Bolivia threatened to kick USAID out of the country altogether. Not too long after that, USAID changed its director in Bolivia. Here is a great summary of the causes of tension in the USAID-Bolivia relationship. (And there's more here.)

If you read the sites at the above links, you'll see references to a previous Bolivian president, Goni. I will write about Bolivia's history with Goni in an upcoming diary, but for now it's relevant to say that Americans played a role in getting him elected:

Our Brand Is Crisis


I have a hunch it is that, and not the clean water projects, that led some Bolivians to send the following messages to USAID:


Graffiti in El Alto, Bolivia


Graffiti in El Alto, Bolivia


Graffiti in El Alto, Bolivia


Graffiti in El Alto, Bolivia


Graffiti in El Alto, Bolivia

During my time in Bolivia, I met one guy who was working on a USAID project. He wasn't eager to advertise his affiliation with USAID, and he was actually employed by a sub-contractor and not USAID itself. It appeared that he was doing very good work, working on eco-tourism as a means to rainforest preservation.

Bolivia Diaries: Day 8, Part 2 - "Agroforestry on Steroids"

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.

Our eighth day began with a visit to El Ceibo chocolate cooperative. This diary is about ECOTOP, an agroforestry operation where we had lunch and a tour (and dinner the night before) before driving back to Rurrenabaque.

My trip was organized by Global Exchange and Food First. You can find out about future Food Sovereignty tours at the link.

After our visit to El Ceibo, we visited ECOTOP, a "consultance firm that offers services in the area of rural development, particularly focusing on ecological agriculture" (according to its website). Daniel, who had come with us from Rurrenabaque, simply referred to ECOTOP as "agroforestry on steroids." We had eaten dinner there the night before, and before our tour, they served us lunch.

The meals at ECOTOP were hands down the best food I ate in Bolivia, give or take the pesto llama ravioli I had on my first night in La Paz. Everything they served was grown on site, and the yogurt they served with dessert was homemade from their neighbor's cow's milk (with sweetened hibiscus preserves to mix in with it). Unfortunately, I did not take pictures of the food, and some of what was served were plants I was unfamiliar with. We ate a sort of latkes made out of pigeon peas at lunch, a soup, and a tropical fruit salad.

Then we were introduced to ECOTOP by one of the men who works there. The man behind ECOTOP, who we did not meet, is Joachim Milz, a German who was sent by the German government to work with El Ceibo chocolate cooperative for over a decade (two periods of six years). He founded the farm we visited in Sapecho, which is now an experimental agroforestry operation and a site to hold training courses.



A 20 year old Flor de Mayo tree near the entrance of ECOTOP


Bananas, near where we had lunch

The land where the farm is located (in Sapecho, in the region of Alto Beni) was cropped in rice repeatedly for 30 years before Milz took over the land in 1990. He began with a rather conventional approach, planning to have an area for citrus, an area for cacao, etc. It was around 1995 that they began experimenting - quite successfully - with agroforestry. Thus, the initial area we toured is still 1.5 hectares of citrus, but now there are several levels of crops growing alongside the citrus.

It's important to note that, while their agroforestry system is said to work well on degraded soils, the farm itself is located in an area with quite good soils. Daniel said that his own farm - with a rather unprofitable agroforestry system - has soils that would rate as a 1 or a 2 on a scale of 1-10 (with 10 being the best, like Iowa's soil). The soils here in Alto Beni would rate a 7 on that scale.

In 2004, they began running experiments in individual farmers' fields. ECOTOP provides the technical advice and all of the plants and/or seeds, and the farmer does the work and keeps the produce. ECOTOP will bring plants and seeds for 20 to 30 species, all of which must be in the right stage of development, and plant them on the same day. They do this with the goals of enriching the soil and producing as much food as possible, particularly in the first few years (as some fruit trees take several years to begin producing).

In this system, the first crop that can be harvested is "40-day beans," then maize, and other types of beans that can be harvested quickly. The same time these crops are planted, they plant cassava, which can be harvested in six months to a year, and bananas, which begin producing at one year and continue to produce for several years. They also incorporate pigs and fish, feeding the agricultural waste products to the animals. (The farm we visited had chickens as well.)

They do baseline soil testing and then track the soil's fertility via analytical testing as well as by more qualitative, observational methods (i.e. digging into the soil to monitor the changes that are occuring). This is all done alongside the farmers who own the land.

Once lunch was done, we began our tour. One thing that is hopefully evident in the photos is that this forest has multiple levels. There are lumber trees at the top, then rubber trees, fruit trees, coffee trees below them, and pineapple plants on the ground. They told us they initially planted rows of pineapple plants, but those got too thick and they pruned them.

There are also some forage peanuts, which are used in this area as a cover crop. The forage peanuts, wild peanuts that are native to this area (peanuts are thought to originate in Bolivia), produce some food, which is fed to the animals. Additionally, any oranges that fall on the ground go to the pigs, but the pigs are not allowed to walk through the forest and forage.




A citrus tree, with a shorter plant (cacao?) growing below it.


A red variety of bananas






Forage peanuts, grown as a cover crop

As we walked, we saw spices like nutmeg and mace (they grow on the same tree), cinnamon, and pepper. Pepper is actually a vining plant and one of the costs of growing it is putting in supports for the vines. ECOTOP solved this problem by using live supports - trees. At first they tried using pacay (ice cream bean), a leguminous tree, because it did double duty, providing fertility to the soil and supporting the pepper vines. However, pacay is a relatively short-lived plant, so they switched to using longer-lived lumber species as their pepper supports.


Pepper

We also saw vanilla, which is an orchid. Below are a few pictures of the entire plant (a vine) and then a few pictures of the flower itself.


Vanilla


Vanilla


Vanilla flower


Vanilla flower

One the farm, they do quite a bit of pruning and thinning to make sure that the desirable fruit and lumber species are not being shaded out by undesirable species. They use the wood from the less desirable species that they thin in their oven.

Here, they do quite a bit of manipulation of light to induce flowering of different crops at various types. The citrus that they produce in semi-shade grows fruit that stay ready to sell longer than conventional citrus, allowing them to command a better price. They also chose to put in deciduous lumber species because those trees drop their leaves for part of the year, putting organic matter on the ground and giving more light to the species below them.


A cacao tree with flowers


A close-up of a cacao pod (on a different tree)


A zoomed out pic of the same tree


The chickens

Then we came to a peach palm that actually had fruit. We saw several peach palm trees on Daniel's farm but, with his poor soil, he only gets one fruit harvest per year. Here, at ECOTOP, they get two. They can sell the fruit, dry some to make a flour from it, cook some and feed it to the pigs, or give some directly to the chickens.


Fruit of the peach palm

Then we came to some small, experimental plots where they were trying various things. In one, we saw rows of pineapple planted. Nearby, we saw pigeon peas growing (the same plant we had eaten for lunch).


Pineapples


Pigeon peas (the pods on the trees)

It was about that time that a nest of bullet ants cut our tour short. I was walking in the front when I spotted one of the ants and asked about it. Our Spanish-only-speaking guide started yelling "hormiga! cuidado!" and we had a moment of slight chaos, and then turned around to head the other way. On the way back, we passed an enormous bug and a nursery area where cacao, pepper, and other types of plants were growing.


Bug


The plant nursery


More seedlings in the nursery

With that, I hosed off my muddy feet (it was raining and our tour took us through puddles) and we all got in our cars to drive back to Rurrenabaque. Our wonderful hostess at ECOTOP sent us off with snacks of dehydrated bananas for the ride back and an entire homemade coffeecake to eat for breakfast before our early flight to La Paz the next morning.