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).