Bolivia: Making the Best of It
By Michael Harrington

The inauguration of Evo Morales, Bolivia’s first ever president of indigenous descent, was historic for both Bolivia and all of South America.  He was elected on a socialist, anti-United States platform that promised to reinvigorate Bolivia’s coca leaf industry and denounced capitalism and the Bush administration.  I felt slightly self-conscious walking around the city joining in on the celebration, but I figured that if I ran into any trouble I could easily pass for Canadian.

The inauguration was a cluster of people and a string of political speeches that my limited Spanish failed to fully understand.  Having never heard of Evo Morales before the past couple of days, I learned whatever I could about him from signs and fliers that depicted Evo alongside Fidel Castro and Che Guevara and hailed him as the people’s president.  A Chilean tourist who spoke some English told me even more about Evo’s background, his anti-U.S. campaign and the significance of an indigenous person being elected president in South America, and as some would say, “ending 450 years of colonial rule.”

After the official inauguration the sun fell and the party began.  Thousands of Bolivians paraded through the streets of La Paz late into the night drinking and singing, dancing and cheering as fireworks exploded above our heads.  And there I was, smack dab in the middle of history with a big, dumb smile on my face taking it all in.

The next day after the festivities had concluded, I attempted to board an overnight bus to Uyuni, a town in southern Bolivia where the promise of the world’s largest salt flats awaited.  Upon arriving at the station my bus was inexplicably canceled.  I was not given any reason, simply handed a refund and turned away.  I bumped into some Irish girls who had Uyuni tickets with another company; they suggested I give them a try.  Unfortunately the bus was sold out, and I was forced to stay in La Paz another night. 

Twenty-four hours later I boarded what had been hailed as one of the more reliable of the bus companies.  After close to an hour of waiting without explanation, the tourist police boarded the bus and interrogated two men sitting across the aisle from me.  After asking them a dozen questions and even requesting one of them to sing the Bolivian national anthem, the police escorted the two men off the bus.  According to the Bolivian man seated next to me, the men were “banditos,” thieves from Peru set on robbing the bus sometime after dark in the middle of the Bolivian countryside.  We wiped away nervous sweat as the bus finally pulled out of the station.

At some point in the middle of the night the roads turned into dirt and then mud in the pouring rain.  I woke at six in the morning; the bus suddenly stopped; and I feared the worst.  We’re stuck in mud, I thought.  I remembered the Chilean tourist telling me that one of Evo’s promises was to pave all of Bolivia’s roads.   If only he had been elected a few years earlier.  Turns out he lost a close vote in the last election. 

The bus was not quite broken down; it had just found a new driving routine that went as follows:  drive for two minutes, pull over while the three man crew jump out and filled up buckets and plastic bottles with water from the nearby puddles and streams, pour the water into the engine, drive for two minutes more and repeat process.  This went on for over an hour until we came to a tiny village 100 kilometers from nowhere that consisted of a restaurant, an inn with no vacancies and a few empty buildings in various states of dilapidation.

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