Boliviq 1

Lundi 25 janvier 2010 1 25 /01 /Jan /2010 20:27

Boliviq 1

Samaipata

Samaipata is a small village lost in the mountain with a wonderful climate and beautiful surroundings. Many germans and dutchs are established here. We made a 2 days trip to go where Ernesto “Che” Guevara spent his last days before being captured by the bolivian army (helped by the american CIA) and executed the 9^th october 1967 in the small school of the isolated village of La Higuera. After the success of the revolution leaded by Fidel Castro and Che Guevara in Cuba, Che decided to continue the fight in Bolivia in order to extend the revolution in the whole South America, Bolivia being a very central country on the continent. But because of diverse factors Che's guerilla failed in Bolivia; first Che didn' t have enough support of the local population, not ready to die for his ideal despite the dictatorship in Bolivia, and secondly, Fidel Castro didn't support Che neither, “betraying” him according to a commonly accepted rumour. (The inflexibilty of Che and his lack of readiness to compromise with his revolutionnary doctrine disturbed more and more Castro politics).

We went to the place where Che was buried secretly by the bolivian army after his execution, the hospital and the place where his corpse was shown to the international press short before, the school in the village of La Higuera were Che and his companion “Willy” were executed, the hill were Che and his group has been ambushed and where he fought for the last time before being captured (his riffle was damaged by the fight and he couldn' t fight back anymore). Che Guevara expected being arested and brought in trial, but he was executed immediatly the night of his arrestation, as the CIA and the Bolivian army wanted end up with him as quick as possible and not bring to much of the media attention on his revolutionary ideal (the world was in full cold war and the Vietnam war was was getting bad for the americans, so that they wouldn't afford any communist parties in South America and consequently supported many dictarorships).

Hospital corpse of Che for the international press \

SUCRE

After Samaipata we headed for Sucre, the constitutional capital of Bolivia. Sucre is quite a small city, the actual economic center being in the city of LaPaz. Sucre lies at an altitude of 2750m, which is quite low regarding to the rest of the country. The colonial buildings downtown from the 18th and 19th centuries are well conserved and the city is the gateway to small village, like Tarabuco, where we spent one day (market day on Sunday). What impressed pretty much in Bolivia is the way people dress: globalisation has not comen here yet and a lot of peolple still wear traditional clothes.

We went as well to see dinausorus footprints, fossilized in the stone.

POTOSI

Potosi is claimed to be the highest city in the world (4,090m)and is 7 hours bus drive from Sucre, further east. It lies beneath the Cerro de Potosi. — sometimes referred to as the Cerro Rico ("rich mountain") — a moutain popularly conceived of as being "made of" silver ore, which has always dominated the city. The Cerro Rico is the reason for Potosi's historical importance, since it was the major supply of silver for the Spanish Empire. Potosi is a mining town, once very rich but now relatively poor. The miners organize nowadays in cooperatives. We went into one of the mines, which was a great human experience. We started the day as the minors do: chewing coca leaves (it reduces the sensation of fatigue), smoking strong cigarettes and drinking 96 degree (!) alcohol (yes, minors don’t live very long here).

SALAR OF UYUNI

The next day we went for the salar of Uyuni. It is the world's largest salt flat at 10,582 km², elevated 3,656 meters above the sea level. The center of the Salar contains a few "islands", which are the remains of the tops of ancient volcanoes which were submerged. The view is amazing, and the white background of the pictures allows some visual tricks (see pics!). After what we went further south and saw active volcanoes (only smoke going out, no lava),as well as a lot of James flamingo, desert, etc…