A Comparative Embassy Taxonomy

Bolivia is the poorest country in South America, and although I'm too lazy to look it up, I'd wager that it ranks pretty low on the list of U.S. trading partners. So why does the U.S. embassy in La Paz need to be a hulking 10-story monolith set back 100 feet in all directions from 15-foot blast walls and videocameras and kleig lights when so many other countries who do real business in Bolivia seem to make do with a more, shall we say, "modest" architecture? How many Special Assistant Deputy Undersecretaries of State for Bolivian Affairs do we need here, after all? What are all those USAID and Department of State and CIA staffers doing in there all day? And why the design features that scream "federal penitentiary" far louder than, um, "friendly diplomacy?" As one of Bolivia's largest foreign-aid donors, are we really so unpopular as to necessitate all this?

Landlocked and "underdeveloped," Bolivia doesn't export too much of value to the U.S. market. Sure, after testy Venezuela, this country has the continent's second-largest natural gas reserves... but very few U.S. companies operate here: the majority of foreign investment in gas comes from Petrobras (Brazil), Repsol-YPF (Spain), and Total-Elf (France). My neighborhood in Sopocachi is home to most of the embassies in La Paz, so I've had occasion to pass Spain's and Brazil's missions (haven't found France's yet). Guess what? These countries make do with buildings that sit well in their surroundings, that don't scream "We rule the world and we're afraid of peasant uprisings!"

Brazil has a big brick office tower with postmodern-looking green and yellow circles and arrows all over it - sure, it's big and ugly, but it looks just like every other big and ugly office building on the block. In fact, it's a little nicer, as if to remind the populace, just ever so slightly, of the regional economic superpower next door ready and willing to develop those petroleum reserves and pipe the gas off to Sao Paulo.

Spain, on the other hand, has gone with a subtle little gated compound of old, quaint... well, there's no other way to put this... "colonial" buildings: 2-story affairs with little gardens in front that you can see through the fence. Mixed in are some newer structures, probably with bullet-proof glass or whatever, but the message Spain seems to be sending with their embassy is, "We're not sorry we built our empire on the sweat and blood of 8 million indians in your silver mines. But, hey, that was a long time ago. Let's be friends in the 21st century, OK? Want some money to build a hospital?"

And what of the rest of the community of nations? Well, let's see:

Japan: Nice big house in suburban neighborhood. Walls, yes. Security guard, yes. But in middle-class La Paz, most houses look pretty much the same.

Argentina: 3-story office building in a neighborhood of 3-story office builings. Nice big flag.

Peru: Some floors in an ugly apartment building with a small "Embajada De Peru" sign above the door, and several reserved parking spots on the curb.

Paraguay: Flashy signage on a building shared with a nail salon and empanada restaurant.

Chile: No embassy. No diplomatic relations since 1978. Hard feelings since Chilean victory in the 1880's War of the Pacific, in which Bolivia lost its coast.

Brittain: Stately white mansion with serious-looking gate and conspicuous metal detector. A distant second to the U.S. in architecture that says "fear."

And you know what? Although I'm sure there are a plenty of other embassies around, you just don't see too much of them. Obviously, this has much to do with the comparative wealth of nations. Even if they wanted to, neighbors Paraguay and Peru probably couldn't afford anything much nicer than what they've got, and Burkina Faso? Forget it. But I think this is also partly to do with the fact that the majority of countries, with relatively little to do with Bolivia, make investments in their embassies accordingly. The logic probably goes something like this: "No need for a huge $100 million dollar building in La Paz we'll barely use. We do so little trade with Bolivia as to be negligable, and these guys aren't exactly going to attack us with nuclear warheads anytime soon. Let's save the money for a really nice spread in country X..."

It makes sense for countries that share borders to maintain embassies in each other's capitals. It makes sense for countries who do a lot of business with each other to maintain embassies. It even makes sense for powerful countries very far away, with relatively little interest in a poor country (Japan?), to keep an office open there. But what could possibly justify the enormous neighborhood-dwarfing fortress the United States maintains in Sopocachi, La Paz? My theory? It's 50% a show of force, as in: "remember we're in charge and will crush you if you cross us," and 50% a strategic operations center for fomenting secession of gas-rich, Evo-hating Santa Cruz province and/or planning a coup. There really are CIA dudes in there planning sketchy and dangerous things, and they're paranoid. The State Department knows it didn't need to go quite so far in securing the building, but, you know, "in a post-9/11 world you can never be too safe," yada yada... and besides, it doesn't hurt to remind the Bolivians who's boss.

PS - No photos for obvious reasons. I'm willing to criticize, but don't particularly want to see the interrogation room...

El Alto

Someone described La Paz to me as an inverted San Francisco: built in a huge valley between mountain range and altiplano, the city slopes downward from the red brick shantytowns high up on the eastern and western valley walls towards the government center and the big glass towers and fancy apartment buildings in the middle, and then down southward as well, from the top of the valley in the north where the autopista snakes its way up to El Alto and the altiplano, down to La Zona Sur, near the Valle de la Luna, where La Paz's wealthy suburbs bask in the relatively lower altitude and warmer weather, far away from the poverty up above. It's a weird topography - much like Caracas or Rio de Janeiro I guess - that puts the wealthy neighborhoods far down below the poor ramshackle semi-squatter villages. At least they get the views of the Cordillera Real.

And then there's El Alto.

Way up above La Paz, clinging to the lip of the valley and sprawling outward from there across the 4000+ meter altiplano, El Alto is South America's fastest growing city, with over 800,000 residents living in pretty much total squalor, the majority of houses without running water and definitely no heat to guard against the freezing nighttime temperatures, most buildings cobbled together from cheap brick and whatever else was available, no planning, little infrastructure, crowds and minibuses spewing exhaust and little Aymara women selling anything and everything on the streets and everywhere stray dogs and mud. The majority of El Alto residents are Aymara, one of Bolivia's major indigenous groups, and the majority have moved from tiny altiplano communities in the past 20 years or so, looking for work and opportunity in the city down below. El Alto only became incorporated as its own city in 1986 - before that it was just an encampment of poor indigenous folks - and that's still pretty much what it is, just bigger.

El Alto has also been the epicenter of Bolivia's social movements, as the Aymara are traditionally the best organized and most radical of the country's indigenous groups, and the extreme poverty of El Alto has been a sort of crucible for hardcore organizing and mobilizations and autonomous community actions that have not only changed the course of Bolivian history (2003 mobilizations and road blockades that toppled the Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada presidency) but also created a thriving community with a strong identity and some hard-won treasures like UPEA, the Universidad Publica y Autonoma de El Alto, founded in 2003 as a result of student and youth mobilizations and steady pressure on the government.

On Friday and Saturday of last week I attended an amazing Andean/Mesoamerican Indigenous Movements Conference up at UPEA, where academics and indigenous leaders from across the hemisphere came together to share stories, experiences, strategies for social change. To say UPEA is underfunded would be a stretch - the "quad" is a muddy dirt field between a few small buildings - but this is the newest and most politically radical university perhaps in the hemisphere, and the lecture hall was packed with young Aymara men and women in traditional dress and the energy was electric - this was the real deal.

On Saturday afternoon the conference ended with a beautiful ceremony and song and dance and a big community feast of potatoes and plantains and beans all laid out on the floor for everyone to dig into. Just as the blessing over the food was said, the air turned cold and thunder struck and a hailstorm just opened up in the sky, making it hard to even hear each other as the stones hit the metal roof overhead. As the andean drumming and reed flute music got faster and louder, everyone held hands and started doing these long snaky line dances like at a bar-mitzvah, and I joined in and danced until I was breathless in the thin cold air and had to stop. I made my way out into the crazy muddy streets and hopped on a microbus full of sopping wet Aymara women in their bright rainbow colored shawls and bowler hats and rode down the autopista back to La Paz, where the sun was shining and the air was warm.

Longing for the Sea

Today is the 127th anniversary of Bolivia's defeat in the 1880's War of the Pacific, when the country lost its coastline. Last night Caitlin and I were watching "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid," but just before the best part, when Newman and Redford head down here to rob Bolivian banks and silver mines, we were forced to hit pause and head outside, lured by the sound of marching bands in the street. Cadre upon cadre of smartly dressed soldiers were marching down the hill in front of our apartment building in lockstep formation, waving flags, playing tubas and trombones, banging on huge drums. There were literally a dozen bands at least, each representing every conceivable wing of the Bolivian armed forces, including the Navy (yes, despite its landlocked status Bolivia still maintains a Navy... they practice on Lake Titicaca, no doubt preparing for the day when Chile renounces its claim to the northern coast and gives it back). Other than the sailors, who each carried a mini-ship lantern in the colors of the Bolivian flag, the weirdest thing I saw was the marching band composed of riot cops in full battle gear, with black bulletproof vests, helmets, plastic shields, tear gas cannisters, knee pads, etc.

Every band played the same song, which had something to do with Antofagasta, the lost coastal city that it seems all Bolivians long to reclaim from Chile. The "enclaustramiento" - Bolivia's landlocked status - apparently weighs heavy on the national psyche. Seems kind of like people blame a lot of the country's problems on the lack of a port... who knows, maybe it's true. With 127 years of economic development making use of the ocean for imports and exports, maybe Bolivia would be a dramatically different country today.

I found the patriotism and militarism and nostalgia and pomp and circumstance all a bit much. In a country with so many problems and so much poverty, all those shiny new tubas and Kaiser Wilhelm helmets and sabres seemed a tad excessive. Couldn't the government's money be put to better use building schools or health clinics or something?

Then again, who am I to talk? Over 50% of my tax dollars are paying for an idiotic war in Iraq and God-only-knows what other ridiculously expensive and useless bombs, planes, missile defense systems, etc. It's not like the U.S. doesn't have it's own crumbling infrastructure and poverty problems... Militant nationalism: what a waste of resources!

Ah, and as if last night's excitement weren't enough, another marching band started up again outside my bedroom window this morning at 7:45 sharp! More parades and singing and flag waving all day today... Antofagasta!

Thoughts on the Equinox

Some of the many things on my mind during the first day of spring:

1) State Power vs Social Movements

Evo Morales was swept into the presidency December 18 by an unprecedented wave of popular support. While, judging from the international press coverage and statements made by the Bush administration, you'd assume he's a fiery radical who can count on the unwavering alleigance of the Bolivian left, the truth is of course much more complicated. Evo's party, the MAS, actually occupies a moderate Clintonian center-left position in the Bolivian political spectrum, and is viewed with a mix of disdain and begrudging acceptance by the powerful and radical and huge social movements of this country. The Aymara federations of the altiplano, the miners union, the coca growers and other factions are all keenly aware of the divide between campaign rhetoric and promises and the slow pace of moderate reform several months into the Evo presidency (see #2).

In a country where far more power currently resides in social movements than the state, where the last presidency was toppled by roadblocks and marches on La Paz that could easily be organized again, and where the government's options are severely limited by debt and poverty and significant external factors such as the U.S. war on drugs and the need to attract foreign investment to develop gas fields and other intrastructure, the question is whether Bolivians can find a way to strike a balance between state power and people power that won't topple the Evo presidency before it has a chance to even get started.

Everyone knows that the social movements were the real force behind Evo's victory, and that many on the left voted for him because he seemed to hold out the most promise for change. People see him as though in a trial period now, but the streets are already buzzing with impatience and disappointment, and who knows how long folks will wait before they demand to see results comensurate with campaign promises. With a constitutional assembly process already begun, which many are loudly criticizing as corrupted and insufficiently responsive to the issues most important to the people, no one knows how much slack the left will be willing to give MAS before people take to the streets again. People power got Evo the presidency, and people power may well remove him.

2) Challenges and Compromises of a Populist Presidency

What does it mean to have fought for years as an oppositional force, sometimes even as an underground revolutionary movement against a corrupt government, and suddenly find yourselves in the halls of power, in control of the very government you've been railing against for so long? The difficult task of governing often means making compromises, but what if your campaign was framed as a radical revolutionary movement for change? For those on the left, with an ally and friend as president who's willing to listen and ostensibly shares your vision ang goals, how do you decide when to criticize and when to be quiet, tolerating compromises that may contradict your basic platform or program? Like liberals in the U.S. who sat idly by while Clinton dismantled welfare and passed NAFTA, the left in Bolivia is unsure how vocally it should criticize the new government as it falls short of what was promised and expected.

For Evo, on the other hand, there's the tricky balance between carrying through on basic campaign promises and staying in power. In a global economy, with foreign oil companies jittery about talk of appropriating their Bolivian investments and the IMF and Bush administration holding the purse strings that allow the government to stay solvent, Evo knows he can't fully nationalize gas or legalize coca without a severe and prompt international response, perhaps even clandestine support for a coup or assasination. What, then, should he do? How far should he go towards what the social movements are demanding? Allende nationalized the copper mines and started a radical program of wealth redistribution and look where it got him, not to mention his country for 2o years afterwards. On the other hand, Castro's Cuba, despite the leader's storied longevity, doesn't exactly present a wonderful model of development and poverty alleviation for Evo either. So really, is it better to burn out, or to fade away?

3) Nationalization of Resources in a Globalized Economy

Then there's the whole hornet's nest that is Bolivian gas. With the hemisphere's second largest reserves after Venezuela and gas prices at near-record highs, Bolivia could raise standards of living, build roads and schools, develop infrastructure, etc, with revenue from the sale of gas. Problem is, unlike Venezuela, Bolivia has no state-owned petroleum company, and no equipment of its own, so has to settle for Spanish Repsol-YPF and Brazilian Petrobras to do the heavy lifting. Understandably, the Bolivian people are clamoring for full nationalization of all natural resources, most importantly gas. Bolivia's natural resources belong to the Bolivian people, plain and simple.

Except it's not. Evo can't just kick Repsol and Petrobras out of the country like Iran or Saudi Arabia did decades ago, creating state-owned oil companies that could be leveraged to finance national development programs. For one, in the short-term, who'd be left to run the equipment? Secondly, am more important, these companies would immediately sue Bolivia in international trade court or through WTO mechanisms that protect against appropriation of foreign investment. Bolivia wouldn't just be without the resources or expertise to pump the gas out of the ground, it would be stuck with a multi-billion dollar bill for damages, effectively wrecking the economy and putting all other spending programs on hold, including those for education, health, and public safety, etc. A very bad situation.

In a global economy, with trade rules and international mechanisms in place to protect corporations who operate overseas, it may be effectively impossible for Bolivia to nationalize its gas except in name only... which is what it looks like Evo is doing. 51% of Bolivian gas belongs to Bolivians, and Repsol and Petrobras are invited to form a public-private partnership, with 18% royalties and 32% taxes going to Bolivia's treasury, a better deal than they had beforehand, but still a far cry from the nationalization that was promised, and that a majority of Bolivian citizens are demanding.

4) Federalism vs Regional/State Autonomy

One of the most interesting questions currently facing Bolivia is how much autonomy should be granted to the "departments," or states, and how much central control should be maintained by the national government in La Paz. In Bolivia, state government is practically nonexistent. Local mayors are elected by the people, but "governors" of the departments are chosen by the national government, and departmental revenue all goes straight to La Paz, where it is distributed nationally, according to priorities set by the president.

Bolivia's problem is Santa Cruz. The easternmost department, and the largest, Santa Cruz has most of the gas reserves and a huge percentage of the agriculturally productive land in the country. Santa Cruz's politics are dominated by the wealthy right-wing elite who profit from agribusiness and petroleum, and they want to secede, or at least keep more of the wealth they generate in their own pockets. They're clamoring for a referendum on departmental "autonomy," which it looks like Evo will include in the June elections for the constitutional assembly, a huge concession which will have major repercussions on the state's ability to manage its development. But the reality is that without this concession, Bolivia could well face the prospect of a civil war, and with last year's re-opening of a U.S. airbase 50 miles from the Bolivian border in Paraguay and strategically close to the Santa Cruz gas fields, you can bet which side Bush will support...

Unlike in the U.S., where the conflict on state's rights comes down largely to questions of gay marriage and medicinal marijuana, the Bolivian debate on regional autonomy has grave consequences for the future of the Bolivian state itself. Let's hope they get it right.

Power Politics in Bolivia

I arrived in La Paz on Saturday and have been in total sponge-mode since then, absorbing not only the sights and sounds and smells of this amazing city, but also spending many hours listening and learning about the social movements that brought Evo Morales and the MAS party to power in December, and about the challenges and struggles facing the new government and the country's various social movements now that a populist protest leader controls the state apparatus.

I'm fortunate that Jean - a great Wesleyan and SF friend - is so connected to so many brilliant and amazing peeople here. Everything in Bolivia is up in the air, from the new constitutional assembly process to the nationalization of gas and other natural resources to the decriminalization of coca cultivation to the legitimacy and longevity of the Evo administration itself. Already I've met and shared meals with some of the people both in government and outside of it who are helping to shape the future of this country, and it's been intense!

Tomorrow I'll begin attending (and volunteering for) an international conference on indigenous rights with participation from leaders across the hemisphere. Totally fortuituous that I happened to arrive this week, and also that I've been introduced to the coordinators of the conference, who desperately need logistical support, which I'm more than happy to provide!

Besides the listening and learning and asking questions, I'm also lucky to be joined here by another amazing activist friend from SF, Caitlin, who's here for the week laying the groundwork for an international gathering in October of women lawyers and environmental activists. We've had a great time breathlessly exploring the city together, including my favorite discovery so far: the witch's market where you can buy dried llama fetuses, which apparently are used for good luck ceremonies?!

So much more to write, explain, describe, but for now the most important thing is to DO.

Of Bus and Bloqueo

I love this country. Scattered reports Tuesday of campesino blockades on the route between Potosí and Oruro became on Wednesday confirmed reports and newspaper photos of an ugly confrontation between bus passengers trying to get where they were going and locals frustrated with their corrupt mayor and using the only tool in their strategic toolbox, the roadblock, to force change. Makes me think about the tactic and how we use it in our country - largely symbolically, as there are always many detour routes and cops don't tolerate any threat, real or perceived, to the unobstructed flow of commerce - compared to how it´s used here: several dozen angry peasants shutting down all long distance transport in several regions of the country, for days on end, effectively paralyzing whatever commercial activity there might have been.

By Thursday morning it was pretty obvious that my 8PM bus for La Paz was going to be cancelled, along with every other bus using the single passable road between the southern cities of Potosí and Tarija and Oruro and La Paz in the northwest.

Thursday afternoon, after gathering what scant information I could from ticket vendors at the bus terminal and watching a television reporter file a report with his cameraman using an old duct taped Sony Handycam, I decided I would take the 12hr night bus through Sucre to Cochabamba, where I could then catch a connection to La Paz on a route passing north of Oruro and the blockades.

As if Jean Claude Van Damm´s stunning tour-de-force, "In Hell," and "Rocky IV," that grand anti-Soviet agitprop masterpiece, both poorly dubbed into Spanish, weren´t enough to keep me wide-eyed through the night, I also got to try out a seat designed for short Bolivians, not 6'1" Americans. Needless to say, I was thrilled to find out this morning when we arrived in Cochabamba that several more bloqueos sprung up last night, including at least one on the road between Cochabamba and La Paz, meaning no buses leaving here in the foreseeable future.

At least Cochabamba has an airport. I'm going the spoiled-rich-kid-tourist route and shelling out the $40 (instead of $6 for the bus) for a 40 minute flight to La Paz tomorrow afternoon. But not without thinking long and hard about all the thousands of stranded people stuck where they are until this controversy is resolved, unable to sell their products or get to their families or whatever, just waiting, maybe not even able to afford a place to stay for who knows how long, sitting with their bags and their babies in the bus station...

Got the rest of the afternoon and tomorrow morning to explore Cochabamba, which is much hotter and lower in elevation than Potosí, and seems more "cosmopolitan" and less "Andean," at least as far as first impressions go, based largely upon music being played in passing cars, menu items in restaurants, and women's clothing choices (less bowler hats, more tank tops).

Some Quick Bolivia Observations

There are Quechua and Aymara women everywhere in serious black bowler hats and big skirts and colorful blankets slung over shoulders carrying huge heavy loads or babies or both... Narrow winding cobblestone streets at 14,000+ feet and stinky microbuses and crowds of people jostling each other and selling pirated DVDs and fruit and bread and everything else on the 2ft wide sidewalks and spilling out into the streets and not a single traffic light functioning in the entire city... Shoeshine boys every 100 yards eager to polish my boots even though I just got them polished yesterday and they're totally spotless and shiny and I don't think I have the patience to get a shoeshine once a day...

Bitter taste of coca leaves chewed up into a ball in my cheek with a little bite of "bica" -bicarbonate - to catalyze it and my mouth got a little numb but that's about it, although maybe it helped with the altitude I can't really tell... Paid 80 bolivianos about 9 dollars for a tour of the Cerro Rico mine above town, which is double the daily wage of the miners who work there every day in the dark in the worst conditions I've ever seen, breathing toxic fumes, covered in mud, handling noisy heavy drilling machinery and dynamite and sickly-sweet-smelling ammonium nitrate to blow holes in the swiss cheese mountain that's been worked over and over again continuously since 1545, where they say that over 8 million slaves and workers have died pulling out bucket upon bucket of zinc-slver-tin-lead ore to be broken up by hand in big piles at the mouth of the mine outside in the bright sunlight... sweating and feeling scared but adrenaline-rushed climbing down rickety wooden ladders through shaftways barely wide enough for my shoulders 150 feet down into a tunnel filled with ankle deep chemical water and turning off the headlamp to total and utter darkness and wandering into the shrine to El Tio de las Minas, the devil-god patron of the miners, whose giant phallus and horns are surrounded by offerings of alcohol and cigarettes and coca leaves... and taking a hot shower in my comfy hostel room at the end of the day and reeling from the physical, emotional, intellectual intensity of what I had experienced, and struggling to imagine how the miners cleaned up at the end of the day and what they ate for dinner and how they managed to get out of bed this morning, every morning, and go back to work there in the dark...

And changing my travel plans tonight because the only route from Potosí to La Paz is blocked by campesino protesters angry with their corrupt mayor and using the only tactic they have at their disposal, a roadblock, to get attention and force change, so I have to go instead to Cochabamba 20 hrs out of my way in order to get over to La Paz this weekend... thinking about the strategy choices and tactics people use here and how different they are from the ways in which we organize protests in the States...

Lots more to say on this and much else, but gotta run to go confirm my seat for another glorious overnight bus departing in several hours... and PS, internet connection too slow for uploading photos today, but more to come soon, including some lovely self portraits in baggy mine tourism outfit with extra large pants on backwards and inside out!

High in Potosí

My head is swimming with impressions and images since crossing into Bolivia yesterday and taking a 12 hour night bus under a full moon and through a lightning storm and surviving 2 middle-of-nowhere breakdowns and finding my hostel in Potosí - highest city on Earth - this morning at 6AM and wandering around literally breathless all morning and then heading deep underground into a silver-tin-lead-zinc mine that's been in operation continuously since 1545 and where the workers make $5.80 per day and I wish I had time to say more, and will, but the internet cafe is closing and I have to get some sleep before I pass out...

Gateway to the Altiplano

Jujuy is Argentina's smallest, poorest, northernmost province, and feels a lot less like the rest of the country and more like what I expect Bolivia to be. Fitting, since I'm sitting in Tilcara, about 60 miles from the border, on my way north later today. The drive from Salta took me out of lush green valleys capped with low clouds and rain all morning suddenly up into brilliant sunshine and dry desert vegetation including lots of cacti, and then into the Quebrada de Humuhuaca, huge multicolored canyon formations that are a designated UN World Heritage Site, a fact that the locals make much of on roadside signs and storefronts declaring the region "El Patriomonio de la Humanidad." We're at 2500 meters or so here, and I can feel the difference.

Arrived in dusty but delightful Tilcara at 2 PM, hoofed it through the narrow windy streets up to a beautiful hilltop hostel to drop my bag, then back down and out of town to the Pre-Colombian fortress complex known as La Pukará, partially reconstructed in the past 50 years by U. Bs. As. archeologists, but still eerie and silent with the wind making strange noises blowing through the cactus spines and no one else around and me sitting alone in the shade of a bi stone wall trying to imagine what life was like here on this hilltop 5,000 years ago.

What else? Ate my first llama steak (photo here) last night, heard some great local folk music, and bought my final Argentine bus ticket bound for the border later today... stay tuned for more from Bolivia tomorrow!

I Heart Salta

Rolled into Salta, Argentina yesterday after 20 hrs on the bus from Mdza, watching "Good Morning Vietnam" and "Armeggedon" through the night and wondering what all the Argentines on the bus must think of the U.S.A. and our movies and music and self-image and culture and neuroses... sat next to a sleepy German guy, so didn't really get the chance to rap in Español like I usually like to on these long rides, but no worries, cuz Dan and Tobie gifted me a massive and brilliant treatise on 20th century warfare and the history of the modern nation-state called "The Shield of Achilles" by Philip Bobbitt so I got my read on for several hours and felt all smart and academic and pensive and that was fun as mostly I had been reading thrown-away tabloids and food wrappers on the bus after temporarily giving up on page 16 of Marquez's Love in the Time of Cholera in the original idioma.

The city of Salta lies between several intersecting mountain ranges on the southeastern edge of the rise to the great Argentine/Bolivian/Chilean Altiplano. It's humid but not too hot, lush green but bordering vast superdry mountain canyons and arroyos, and high (1200m) but not too high that you get out of breath walking around town. Salteño culture is rich and storied, partly owing to its unique location halfway along the old Potosí-Buenos Aires post road where pack trains and Spanish soldiers huffed it up to the mines at 15,000 feet and back down to the Atlantic with their silver exports and other mountain riches bound for Barcelona and Madrid. Supposedly the birthplace of empanadas, and also apparently the best spot in Argentina to see traditional Chacarero music (like Tango but more Guacho, more boot-stomping), Salta's got a lot going for it.

No idea where to stay just off the bus and squinting in the bright sunshine, I wandered into Plaza 9 de Julio in the town center and bumped into Tina from Munich, who had been on my bus a few rows away. We chatted briefly and realized neither of us had any idea where to stay, so set off wandering the streets, eventually finding a nice little hotel with a super-talkative owner eager to show off his thousands of digital photos to anyone who expresses even the slightest interest in looking at them on his computer. Late afternoon Tina and I climbed the town mountain and rode the gondola back down at sunset for fantastic views of the city and the valley and surrounding lush green mountains stretching up northward past Jujuy (hoo-HOOEY!) and up to the Bolivian border, then wandered down for a late dinner at one of the many huge restaurants on Calle Balcarce specializing in steaks the size of which you cannot imagine and entertainment provided by live Chacarero performances by beautiful girls in flowing white dresses and men dressed in superbaggy MCHammer style pants, cowboy boots, vests, and huge sombreros, stomping around and trying to look sexy but mostly ridiculous while the girls clearly steal the show.

This morning I had a cup of coffee with my friend Miguel, whom I met waiting in line at the Dulles Airport in January when our Bs. As. flight was cancelled. Small world: Miguel went to the Yale School of Forestry and is general manager of Argentina's only Forest Stewardship Council-certified timber company. We clearly had a lot to talk about, as RAN has been one of the main forces creating demand in the global marketplace for sustainably harvested wood-products, and he had studied us at Yale with a professor I know there. I learned a ton asking questions about the timber business and forest protection in Argentina, and we rapped a bit about the role of international advocacy campaigns in creating markets for sustainable products like his... He then offered to take me on what turned out to be a long and dusty ride through the beautiful countryside surrounding Salta, using the trip to show off his extensive knowledge of trees and forest ecology, pointing out every single species and explaining whether it was native or invasive, and generally just being a kick-ass tour guide and generous and fun.

When we got back to town I thought we would split but he took me straight to his favorite local empanada stand, "El Buen Gusto," jam-packed with locals in a far corner of town and -- bliss -- not a Lonely Planet-reading tourist in sight in the whole barrio. Miguel says they sell 5,000-7,000 empanadas in a weekend, and judging by the line I'd say that's a conservative estimate. The empanadas were tiny and delicious and we ordered a dozen with salsa picante and cokes to wash them down. Was pleased as punch to see this other side of Salteño living not written up in all the guidebooks and full of backpacking tourists just like me.

Monday I head northward again to the Quebrada de Humhu-somethingorother, which are supposed to be beautiful Utah-style or maybe Badlands-like rock canyon erosion formations and nearby you can check out Argentine Andino culture in tiny little mountain towns before crossing the border to Bolivia, sometime Tues, and hopefully making it to Cochabamba by Weds night for a Manu Chao concert I just found out about the other day! Gotta run... love ya!

Alaska to Antarctica

Monday night I met up with SF friends Tobie and Dan, just weeks from the end of their epic 10-month Western Hemisphere roadtrip from Prudhoe Bay on the shores of the Arctic Ocean to Ushuaia, in Tierra Del Fuego, the world's southernmost city. Craziness!

Yesterday I accompanied them on a short side trip to several wineries in Maipú, where we toured the wine presses and tasted lots of Malbecs. Sitting in their car for just a few hours, I tried to imagine all the endless hours of driving and the 30,000 miles they've put on the odometer, and felt much better about my measly 18 hour busride to Salta this evening.

I've already seen "2Fast, 2Furious" thrice on this trip, so keep your fingers crossed for another movie on the bus, please!

OK, more observations later. Siesta time is almost over and Dulce de Leche ice cream is calling my name...

Longest Siesta Ever

Mendoza is a ghost town between the hours of 2:00 and 6:00 PM. It's like people just float off into some other invisible hidden indoor world. What do they do all afternoon? 4 hour lunches? 4 hour naps? Video games? Anyway, it's eerie to be out walking around and just see people disappearing left and right. And then all of a sudden at 6:15 the streets are packed again and the sidewalk cafés are 4 deep with tables of beer drinking, ice cream eating, happily chattering crowds... and they stay this way straight through to 3:00 AM. No wonder they call this place Men-doze-a. I´m not quite down with this routine yet, but I'm slowly learning to like it...

Lost In Translation (For Real)

In Argentina watching "Lost in Translation," the classic Bill Murray movie about early 21st century cultural alienation in Tokyo, dubbed into French and then subtitled in Spanish for the benefit of some other guests at my hostel. All the Japanese, however, remains like in the original film, untranslated. This is trippy.

Driving over the Andes today was too.

My Escape From The Smog

Well, I'm a-goin' where that smoggy air don't blowww...

After nearly a week in Santiago, I depart first thing tomorrow morning for the other side of the Andes... lovely Mendoza, Argentina. I've definitely enjoyed my time here, but I think my lungs will thank me for getting the hell out of this pollution soup.

Highlights include: the best hostel I've stayed in yet, with minimal rowdiness but plenty of good political conversation and a nice beer garden; an enlightening discussion -- about the Danish cartoon controversy and whether there should be limits to free speech -- with two surfing hipster Danish law students doing a semester exchange at U. Chile; and perhaps above all, being treated to dinner and 2 bottles of wine by a professor of oenology at the university, who spent 4 hours answering my questions about grapes, winemaking, chemistry, culture, and global trade policy.

OK, am off to go see Heath Ledger accept his Oscar. More photos and observations coming up next... stay tuned!

Ahh, Summer

The requisite beach umbrella shot from yesterday at Viña Del Mar to make all you norteamericano friends and family jealous and resentful... sorry, hope you're not too upset, but it had to be done. And remember, don't hate the player, hate the game!

Lost in Translation

I think humor is the hardest thing to translate from one language/culture to another. Not only are there slang and colloquialisms to confuse you, but you've also got no idea what subtle cultural taboos and social mores the comedians are poking fun at...

So I realized this afternoon as a husband and wife (I think?) team of street performers had 200 spectators in stiches as they joked about sex, marriage, food, family, and probably lots of other things I didn't follow. They were clearly hilarious, and I found myself laughing at all the right jokes, but only because of the physical cues, not because of what they were saying, barely a single word of which I could understand.

Maybe the correct gauge of fluency in a language is not the ability to talk politics or banter about current events, but to tell a really good joke. By this standard, I'm still light years away.

A Poem

The sound of young boys playing
In the street
Santiago de Chile
Final sweet days of summer
Girls in shopwindows delicately select
New school
Uniforms
Muffled hazy traffic sounds
As my ipod headphones play old school New York
New York by Grandmaster Flash

At the lunchcounter cafe today
Served by an old Chilean waiter
Who stood stiffly upright
In a uniform that must have predated
Pinochet
While the speakers blared old Oasis hits
From the days of the disappeared
And of course too Madonna's
Latest global megahit

Victor Jara's fragile hands
Which played a hundred songs
Of Solidarity and Revolution
Were torn apart fingernails ripped out
He was killed in the stadium
Where the best brands of the global marketplace
Are now plastered over everything
On display for thousands of
Wildly screaming
Fútbol fans and millions more watching on satellite

And everywhere in this city still
The gentle carabineros
In their olive uniforms and shiny black boots
Still mask a menacing silence
And through the throbbing beats
In the clubs lining leafy Bellavista streets
I can still hear it late at night
When the young people
Who never knew Allende
Stop to catch their breath
On the dancefloors or for a cigarette
In the street
Or in MTV Viña Del Mar resorts
And for a moment
Are all silent still

Santiago-A-Go-Go

Santiago Chile is hard to get my head around. Unlike in Argentina, where I was fresh off the plane in Buenos Aires, here I've been rambling around the countryside and saw the south before rolling into the big city yesterday. Some first impressions:

Lots of suits and briefcases and shirts and ties, innovative facial piercings on post-punk teens and 20somethings, many old men in classy hats with canes, clean modern subway, no dog pile problems like Bs As, carabineros (cops in scary semi-fascistic shiny boots and olive uniforms) everywhere, mad Chilean flag fetishism, serious business vibe like people have shit to do and make money, old colonial right up next to new glass and sterile 70's government bldgs, colorful flowers and graffiti all over... check the pix, yo!

Tonight am meeting Orli's study abroad cousin for drinx, tomorrow will hit the beach at Viña Del Mar with Nicos a Wharton B-School student on vacation, then tomorrow night got a date to sample Chilean vino with a wine studies prof from U. Chile I met on a bus in Argentina 3 weeks ago. Not sure how I developed such a packed social calendar here, but it's working!