Peru Here I Am

Man, that was a rough ride from La Paz, Bolivia to Cusco. I left at 8am and got to my hostal at 11pm (10pm Peru time). On the way here I saw a lot of half finished houses and apparently that's done to avoid paying taxes on the house, jaja.

As I was running errands this morning in Cusco, there was a Halloween parade starting at Plaza de Armas. It turned a bit violent when kids on top of the church threw water and other things down at the paraders.

I'm uploading photos and man, the internet is twice as fast here as in Bolivia. The downside is that it rains every day now.

Time to go visit some Inka ruins

Alaxpacha

Is the name of the group that I watched last night at the Municipal Theater of La Paz. Right now there's a political campaign to move congress and the president's office to Sucre. A pacheño (person from La Paz) told me that one reason is to bring more jobs of Sucre. But he also said that people from Sucre are often called locos because the country's largest mental institution is in Sucre. Apparently there's also an east/west rivalry in Bolivia (jaja, reminds me of gansta rap) where the two groups, cambas and cayas dislike each other. For example, if a person from Santa Cruz were to come to a disco in La Paz there would probably be a fight. The more important part is that the different regions, besides their rivalries, are continuing to develop their different music dance styles (for example chacarrera in Tarija). This reminds me, my favorite dance here is not the cueca, but the diablada. And one of my favorite andean songs is Señora Chichera (video).

Well, back to Alaxpacha. One of the music video dvds that I bought at the sunday market has their videos so I'm excited about finding a dvd player back in Chile.

In other news, I can't find Bolivian violins in La Paz. They would be located in Tarija or Santa Cruz (the part of Bolivia I didn't visit). They're interesting because one is three stringed with alternating tuning and the other is just a hollow stick with a bridge and pegs. I've found a bunch of wind instruments, though. Don't know how I'm going to travel with so many instruments.

BTW, I leave for Peru tomorrow morning at 8:00. Its a 12 hour trip to Cuzco so hopefully everything goes well and I'll be back online sometime Wednesday.

Tonight I'm going to travel back up to El Alto to interview another wind instrument artisan. Today I interviewed Señor Walata, which was more of a chat about the topless beaches of Barcelona than about the instruments because he too has traveled to Barcelona.

No visit to a 3rd World country would be complete without...

Yesterday was the Sunday market in El Alto, a town next to La Paz and by next to I mean on top of the plato overlooking La Paz. One of my greatest achievements so far has to be being able to take public transportation. This SoCal guy was so used to driving everywhere that catching a bus to El Alto (2 Bolivianos) was no small feat.

There was everything from alternators to a Chavo del Ocho stuffed doll. I bought lots of music and music video DVDs.

My visit to Bolivia wouldn't have been complete if I hadn't gotten the runs. Great! Now I can move on to another 3rd world country. The food here tastes great, but it doesn't go well with my stomach. Neither did the pitchers of an orange cocktail I drank Saturday night. To back up, Saturday evening I went to Peña Parsona Bolivia to watch my charango instructor play with his group Waipala. (The name of the group is also the name of the indigenous flag which has become a big symbol now that Evo Morales is president). That peña was filled with tourists and the ten dollar cover charge felt like a huge hit to my wallet because everything else in Bolivia is so cheap (for example the 5 Bol. cover charge for the Jamuy peña/disco).

Well, after their show I hung out with my teacher, the drummer and their manager as we went peña hopping. Gota de Agua, had a cultural group playing with large drums that they carried on one shoulder and each of them playing a different style of zampoña. This is where that orange drink came into play. But as long as I don't get the stomach flu or something worse I'll manage.

¿Mande?

Jaja, on my trip trough Bolivia there's been several times when people correctly identify that I'm from Mexico. At first I thought it was because I'd grown a mustache, but the real reason I found out was when I say mande. Its an automatic response for me when I didn't understand what someone said. So much for my mexican mustach.

Homesick

Ever since I started my trip I'd always miss my gf, but I'd been ok with not being home. Then last night I had dinner at my hotel watching cable tv and...an episode of The OC came on. This did it, that show for some reason made me miss everything I left behind, and my gf even more. Stupid show.

Favorite Band

I've decided that my favorite band is Cafe Tacuba. Two nights ago I watched them on my hotel's cable tv playing at Viña Del Mar, Chile. They rock! With Aryan I played one of their songs for Caltech's Metal Night: Ingrata.

2007 Viña del Mar: Tirate
2007 Viña del Mar: Las Flores

Viva Mexico Cabrones!!!

Speaking of bands, last night I went to a club (Jamuy) that had a 5 Bol. cover charge and the band Sol Mayor played. The funny part is that I thought the band name refered to the sun, but actually its translation would be G Major, jaja. I saw some awesome dancing to the andean music. The band had an electric drum set, two wind people playing quenas and zampoñas, a woman singer, a charango and guitar. The charango was a shiny acousticelectric one. Good stuff, and with the cover charge we got a free mixed dring shot. I think it was pinaple juice and ron.

The sweet sound of stability

Last night I went to a choir and orchestra concert (Concierto en Homenaje a La Paz, Coro y Orquesta de Camara de la Universidad Mayor de San Andres). The director was a young man Maestro Eric Castro Murillo, whom I had seen two days ago at the cultural discussion group. Thanks to Professor Neenan and his Caltech Mu27 class I began to take notes of the concert:

1. Canto a Don Pedro Domingo Murillo
2. Homenaje a Astor Piazzola: This tribute would have made Señor Piazzola shiver from the lack of intonation. The libertango had a cool cello introduction as well as the Buenos Aires Hora Cero. The Meditango had horrible intonation and in the finale there was actual unresovled dissonance written into the music that just seemed like a continuation of the previous parts.
3. Musica de la Chiquitania: These were various pieces of spanish influence in the baroque mestizo style. The intonation throughout these pieces improved with their best piece being...
4. Musica Sacra by Haendel: The audience ate it up when they played Aleluya. (It was great to hear them singing "foreber")
5. Himno a La Paz (we stood up for this one)

I had arived early and sat in the front row not knowing that when the show actually started (45 min after the original time) that the front row would be filled with important people. For example, the director of the Amigos de la Vida foundation and the director of the Bicentennial planning committee.

Overall, the concert reminded me of my middle school orchestra even though they were a University orcherstra. They didn't have their music ready and were shuffleing to find it while on stage. They were practicing and talking while they waited for the many people that arrived late. It was very disorganized, which made me feel less bad for showing up in jeans and a t-shirt (hey, i'm traveling by backpack). What was funny was all the honking from the street below each time in the silence before the conductor began the pieces. The concert made me realized that I was being very critical because this is an area in which I am familiar. But then the words from Maestro Eric after the program enlightened me of the situation.

The choir was founded in 1973 and sang to the campesinos and the workers in the mines. Then for twenty years it was dormant because of the political chaos. It wasn't until 1993 that it picked up again. Therefore the program is relatively new which accounts for most of my criticizm. The most important part now is that even thought the intonation is slightly off, this is now a stable program that fuels the spirits of the people with music.

Evo Pueblo

Yesterday after my charango clases I went to mirador Laikakota to check out the view of the city and on my way back I stopped by a movie theater and saw that Evo Pueblo was showing. Its a movie about the current Bolivian President, Evo Morales. It had the production value of one of Todd's (HS friend) first films, but was powerfull. It showed Evo from birth to being elected president. I also found out that one of the first things he did as president was to decrease his salary from 60 thousand Bolivianos to 14 thousand, which forced the entire elected government to do the same. This was a positive step away from all the corruption that has plagued Bolivia in its 20some years of democracy. I was told that the people (majority indigenous) were tired of having right wing governments and that is why Evo won with a majority. El pueblo unido jamas sera vencido.

Jornadas Culturales de La Paz 2007

I'm in La Paz, Bolivia. Things are pretty sweet, I started my 12 hour course in charango. I'm diggin my new charango that I bought in Aiquile on my way to La Paz, but its so small I'm having trouble changing chords. The right hand fingering is being learned fast because of all the flamenco exercises I've played. (Btw, the classes are costing me $1.65 per hour...which reminds me that the best deal so far was a night in Aiquile ($2.63 even though I slept on a straw mattress) and lunch at a Sunday market (less than a dollar). Beat that McDonald's value menu!) Boy that was a lot of parenthesis.

So about the Jornadas Culturales, its a yearly meeting in La Paz to discuss the state of culture in Bolivia. I joined the panel discussing music not really knowning what to expect. There were the main problems they talked about, in addition to preparing for the bicentenial celebration in 2009 (BTW, These are mostly notes to myself and not really interesting):
- The music consumption has moved to a majority of outside authors and music instead of national authors.
-Maintaning local cultural music; for example in La Paz there is an increase in Chacarrera style from the south of Bolivia, while more regional styles are being forgotten.
-Need for an organizational body to represent all musicians from every subsection of music. It seems like there are organizations already joining musicians and composers but there is misscomunication or the demands aren't being met.

One of the participants said, that Bolivia is a country of rich musical culture, but there is no such global presence.

Now for my opinions: I believe that it is important to promote music in the schools, because even though not every student will become a musician, at least this exposure will enable them to become a better listener and participant.

Another btw, my spellin in da last few entries must suck because i've been using internet cafes which use internet explorer which don't enable the spellcheck feature of blogger.

El internet mas raido

I'm sitting at a punto entel (internet place), listening to the recordings of last night's CIES (http://cies-saludweb.org/) youth festival promoting sex ed at the Casa Cultural de Sucre. I'm uploading pictures of the past week and while I'm waiting for them to load I look around and see a french guy doing the same thing.

That reminds me, everywhere I go I end up hanging out with frenchies. In Barcelona it was my friend Emilie. In Santiago, Lyonel drove us to the cordillera. Crossing the Uyuni salt flats there was a french couple and an old french man, Bernard. I give that guy props for going on the adventure because he is 70 years old. The props decreased when he snored tremendously the first night when all six of us shared a room. They dropped even more the second and third day when he wore the same crap stained pair of pants and followed me around coughing and complaining of a sore throat. Well at least my french improved.

All the internet places that offer the fastest broadband use ADSL. Boy am I spoiled, 5kbs upload is like watching paint dry. But that's ok because today is my day of rest after a looong week.

Alturas

I left Santiago a week ago and have been traveling north by bus.

Antofagasta, Chile: I was going to spend the night here but when I walked around the only interesting thing was the port. At least it was a good break from the long bus ride from Santiago. I was hopeing to check out the portada, but there were no public buses going there that day.

San Pedro de Atacama, Chile: I got here at night and found out what hostel the stanford kids from Santiago were staying at. It was definitely a lot of fun hanging out with them. I went bike riding to the ruins of Quitor then sandboarding at Death Valley. The next day I rode a bike 15km uphill to Valle de la Luna to watch the sunset. Yes, that meant that I rode back to town in the dark with a little headlight. Well, in between all this goodness, I actually do things for my project. At the town square at noon there was a cueca festival featuring youth group champions from every region. The cool part was that there was a live band with two guitars, an acordion, a mesa and three women singers.

4x4 three day adventure: I had originally thought to go back to Calama and take a bus to Uyuni, but I found out that there were three day tours from San Pedro that cross the altiplano to Uyuni. For $100 I took this trip with everything included (transportation, Bolivia entrance fee, breakfast lunch dinner, accomodations and park entrance fees). For anyone that doesn't know about the altiplano, it was above 3,000 meter peaking at 5000 and bitterly cold even with the crystal clear skies. The first night I slept with two t-shirts, two long sleves, a jacket, gloves, my beenie and two pants in addition to the four blankets.

There were several things that made this trip worth the cold. The first was that I saw llamas! I felt like Jimmy Neutron's fat friend that is in love with llamas. There were also alpacas and vicuñas (smaller versions of llamas).

The second experience pretty much made my trip to Bolivia already. On the tour we passed by a REALLY small town to take a break. That's when I saw a kid (10) walking down the dirt road playing a zampoña. I started a conversation with him and then asked if he could play a tune for me. After a few minutes of encouragement because of his shyness, he played a song and in the middle of it sang in Quechua, his native tongue.

Uyuni, Bolivia: The downside of the three day trip was that I felt sick when I reached Uyuni. Could have been due to the food or the altitude. There was nothing for me so see in Uyuni so I took the next bus to Sucre which left at 7pm yesterday and passed by Potosi at 3am and reached Sucre this morning at 7am.

Sucre, Bolivia: Now that I've had such an adventure in just a week its time for a break. I'm going to stay here two nights. I plan to check out the museo de folklore and maybe catch a show at one of the two theaters.

I wish I could upload the pictures I've taken because I'm afraid of loosing them. Especially the video of the kid from San Juan.

The Metro

I ride the metro almost everytime I need to go somewhere in Santiago. The people here have complained a lot about the recent changes to the micro (autobus) system called Transantiago and about how crowded the metro gets. Well, since I have to car I can't complain and I am experiencing life here so this is just another experience. One thing I've noticed is that many people (including myself) take their mp3 players on the metro, which creates an environment of isolation. This is where my idea comes in (I think a new cell phone company in California already thought of this or is in the process) that the audio players interact with those around them. This would facilitate conversations with strangers while riding the metro if they are interested in what the other person is listening.

La Cordillera

This weekend I went to la Cordillera de los Andes right next to Santiago. Randomly as I was visiting relatives of my HS friend Rodrigo Lois, a niece named Paloma (like my first grade gf in Chihuahua) invited me to go with her and her friends to the mountains.
This is where I thought, el mundo es un pañuelo (the world is a hankerchief) because her friends were a frenchman, Lionel, who worked the last four years in Mexico City and a girl from Stanford, Shira.
We tried going to some thermal waters but they were more room temperature than thermal. Then we hiked six km up the mountain to a supposed lagoon. Well, it was frozed over and our feet got soaked in the process. Good times.

Just When Things Were Looking Up

For unknown reasons, the guy who's renting a room in his apartment to me changed his mind about an earlier agreement we had and will now start charging me $25 per day if I choose to stay with him. What this means for me is that I am now going to start my trip north and leave this apartment.

Things are looking up

Yesterday I went to Plaza de los Dominicos where I was told there was a good artesan center. I finally found the music store that had traditional south american instruments with Mapuche (Native Chilean) horns that I'd never seen before. The storeowner apparently was out to lunch so I just took some pictures and kept walking around. When I passed the store a second time I felt like I was being followed. That person finally asked me if I was looking for him. Since I had no idea who he was I said no. But then I found out that he was Enrique Rebolledo, luthier! We had a short conversation about the instruments before he left for lunch.
The interesting part is that he was warned about some guy taking pictures (me) because there have been times when Chinese people visit, take pictures and then make copies of the crafts that they find.
Things look good because when I return from my trip I might be able to help him out. We'll see how things go.

"Papi yo soy gay...no mijo, tu eres un pobre..."

Last weekend I went to visit Santa Lucia, which is a small hill in the center of the city. On the way I crossed Alemeda street, but to my surprise there was a gay pride parade. Props to the people.

Naranjitos de Maipu

The turist office of Santiago put on a turism fair. This included having groups perform in front of the building. The group above is Naranjitos de Maipu that performed dances from all over Chile. Afterwards there was a group from the island of Pascua. I was a bit emberassed when one of the dancers (the one with the coconuts) pulled me up to dance. This is one of the times that traveling alone is a problem because then no one documented this moment.