One thing I’ve noticed about “coming back” for the second time after fieldwork is “complete” is that the overall terrain of my friendships has shifted. My fieldwork friendships were perhaps out of the ordinary to begin with. Though I liked, respected, and enjoyed the company of the people with whom I was doing research, they were not my real friends in La Paz. They were not the people with whom I usually ate dinner, went to the movies, watched tv, danced or drank with on Saturday nights. I saw them often during training and attending lucha libre events. We would eat together after training or stop by the internet café for a few hours. I went to their birthday parties. But I did not call them when I was bored. I did not ask them to accompany me to the airport at strange hours. I did not stop by their workplaces just to say hello when I was bored.

Those were different friends. And there were a lot of them. I think, to an extent during my fieldwork, I felt that accumulating friends strengthened my authenticity—as a non-gringa, as a kollita, as someone who was part of this social scene in La Paz. And I met some very interesting, smart, and dynamic people. And I wanted all of them to be my close personal friends.

I had a rich social life. As I wrote in my less-academicy blog (though that’s a shaky line to draw), In La Paz, I wear vintage, rockabilly dresses or ripped jeans and t shirts given to me by tattoo artist friends. I’m a live music junkie, a tattoo shop groupie, booze-slinging benefactor, restaurant aficionada, mural-painting sidekick, dj enthusiast, and a legitimate luchadora who rarely pays for a drink.

But now, I have different priorities I guess. The people I used to be excited to see can be dreary at times. I lack enthusiasm for all the dining and boozing. I really would just rather hang out with the few close friends that I really care about than taxi around the city hopping from social scene to social scene.

I don’t know if this is what happens as you get older. Maybe it’s being a doctor (ha!). Maybe this is my form of “settling down.” But I just don’t have the energy that I once did. I don’t want to dance all night. I don’t want more than 3 glasses of wine. I want to be able to hear the conversation I’m participating in. I don’t want to impress anyone. I don’t want to prove myself. But maybe what this all means is that I’m more comfortable here now. Friends are no longer a superficial method of accounting my investment or my embeddedness. They are the people who make me smile and laugh and stop worrying about my (possibly non-existent academic) “future”. They are just my friends.

Though almost every veteran luchador in Bolivia tells the story a little differently, it was during the time of nationalism in the decade following the 1952 Revolution that lucha libre made its first appearance in Bolivia. The form of wrestling that developed in Bolivia already had a long history. Charles Wilson (1959) has traced exhibition wrestling to army men in Vermont in the early 19th century. During the civil war organized bouts became popular among Union troops. After the war, saloons in New York City began promoting matches to draw customers. By the end of the 19th century PT Barnum was using wrestling “spectaculars” in his circus. At first, wrestlers would fight untrained “marks” from the audience, but by the 1890s they began to fight trained wrestlers planted in the audience. It was then that it changed from a “contest” to a “representation of a contest.” These spectaculars were very popular and were replicated at county fairs, which eventually resulted in intercity circuits by 1908 (Wilson 1959). By the 1920s, promoters began to add gimmicks to make characters more memorable.

In 1933, after character development, rules, and other conventions had been established, a promoter named Salvador Lutteroth brought exhibition wrestling to Mexico. He and his partner Francisco Ahumado set up their first wrestling event in Arena Nacional in Mexico City on September 21, 1933. The next year they began the Empresa Mexicana de Lucha Libre (Levi 2008:22). In the next few years, innovations in costuming, character, and technique further “Mexicanized” the genre. Levi argues that at this time the audience was likely made up of both popular classes as well as elites (2008:23). By the 1940s, lucha libre spectators were more from the popular classes, but it still retained a sense of urbanism and modernity (2008:23). In the 1950s, it began to attract a middle class audience on television, but it only remained broadcast for a few years. It was also during this time that it became a popular subject for hundreds of Mexican films (2008:23).

During this era, exhibition wrestling arrived in Bolivia. Most wrestlers suggest that lucha libre was first performed in Bolivia sometime between the mid-1950s and mid-1960s, as Mexican wrestlers traveled to South America, performing and then training the first generation of Bolivian luchadores. Many of the most veteran Bolivian wrestlers who are still active in lucha libre identify these Mexican luchadores as their childhood inspiration. Rocky Aliaga, a Bolivian who currently wrestles in Spain told reporter Marizela Vazquez, “From my childhood I was fan of wrestling and what excited me most was to attend events…of Mexican characters such as Huracán Ramirez, Rayo de Jalisco, and Lizmark.” In particular, Huracán Ramirez is often mentioned as one of the most important influences. Mr. Atlas, a veteran La Paz wrestler recalls, "I ​​started fighting when I was 13 in 1965, when the greats of Mexican wrestling arrived in La Paz. Particularly I remember Huracán Ramirez, the man who fathered me."

Younger wrestlers, like Anarquista from Santa Cruz, also note that the reputation of lucha libre in neighboring Perú was important to the formation and popularity of Bolivian wrestling. Mexican wrestlers toured South America, but it was the periodic visits by Peruvian wrestlers to La Paz that gained a hold in the 1960s. (7-23-2011). 

Today, there are four major wrestling organizations currently operating in La Paz: LIDER (Luchadores Independientes de Enorme Riesgo), LFX (Lucha Fuerza Extrema), Super Catch, and Titanes del Ring. LIDER, LFX, and Super Catch are smaller than Titanes del Ring, and only Titanes and LIDER have permanent places of performance. These two groups host foreign tourists in their El Alto performance venues each week, though Titanes del Ring boasts a much larger crowd and much larger group of travelers than LIDER. Super Catch usually produces shows in neighborhoods such as Villa Victoria (nicknamed Villa Balazos because of the frequency of shootings in the area), Villa Copacabana, or Villa Armonía—all working class neighborhoods of La Paz. However their schedule is somewhat sporadic. They have also recently opened a training program for young wrestlers that remains small. LFX is the smallest and least known of the operations with rare performances. Titanes del Ring, conversely, consistently attracts hundreds of audience members each Sunday at their show in the Multifuncional de la Ceja de El Alto (the multifunctional arena located in the Ceja market area of El Alto). 

Monday was feriado, el Día de La Paz, so Alé and I decided we might as well have a drink. We both had the day off from the respective bars where we work. His a posh but thoroughly local night club. Mine a bar in a gringo hostel that caters to 20 year old Brits spending daddy’s money on vodka lemonades and drugs at the clandestine cocaine bar down the street. The local Paceña beer is cheaper at my joint, so we went there, and as we sipped on the second large bottle, Alé tapped my hand and motioned to the end of the bar. There stood Alec my boss.

The first time I saw Alec was over a year ago. I watched a tall Eastern European man walk out of the hostel office. He was covered in tattoos, and had several prominent facial piercings. He carried a laptop case. I assumed he was in his mid thirties. I only later found out he was 22. The first time I spoke to him was my friend Amanda’s birthday party, when he kept several of us in the bar well after closing, forcing vodka and whiskey shots down our gullets. “No puedes obligarme a beber. No soy tu empleada” I shouted between Jameson shots. But then the next week I started working for him.

And only then did I learn all the stories about Alec. The most famous was the night he stabbed himself in the cheek just to get people the leave the bar. The ladies who work in the kitchen also love to tell stories of “joven Alec” standing on the hostel stairs at 7am, naked and swigging vodka from the bottle. In any event, Alec is like family. He’ll take care of you to the full extent of his in-with-the-Bolivian-police ability, but there are obligations in return. And crossing him is most definitely not in your best interest. 

So, when Alé told me Alec was beckoning, I was slightly nervous. But as I walked over he asked if I would do him a favor. I assumed this involved washing some high ball glasses or getting more tequila from the storage room. But when I said “sure,” he told me he was sending me to Potosí. 

Potosí is not the type of place one dreams of being sent for a business trip. It sits at 4090 meters above sea level giving it an almost arctic climate. And most buildings have no central heat. Its principal (possibly only real) industry is mining, which is almost entirely unregulated. The local beer, Potosiña has a strange hint of burnt bacon in its flavor. There is no airport, so to get there from La Paz, one takes a 10 hour, over night bus ride. Usually the bus has no heat. But as many people will enthusiastically declare, “At least the road is paved the whole way!”

Potosí was not always this way though. Potosí was the principle supplier of Silver to Spain when most of South America was split into colonial provinces. During those days it was one of the richest and largest cities, possibly in the world, with a population of 200,000. In Spanish, there was a saying “valer un potosí”—to be worth a fortune. Today, the silver has disappeared, except in the imaginations of the poorly paid miners who hope they will be the lucky one to find a vein of pure red as they tunnel through the mountain. In my estimation it is the Flint, Michigan of Bolivia. 

And so, early Monday morning, I arose, despite the fact that it was feriado, and went off to buy a bus ticked. But of course, given the holiday, most tour operators were closed, and I had to go to the bus station in person. After finally acquiring a ticket and relieving everyone involved in the operation, I went back to the hostel for the real preparations. Strapping $50,000 in cash to my abdomen.

It’s all the Central Bank of Argentina's fault. Potosí is (relatively) near the border with Argentina, and the company that owns the hostel is building a new one in Salta. When money is transferred into Argentinian bank accounts, it is automatically converted into Pesos. But most high-end purchases: property, building materials, the things that go into making a new hostel, are exchanged for dollars. So when the pesos are converted back to dollars, you end up losing around 10%. For sums in the tens of thousands of dollars, that’s a lot to lose. 

So instead, I was off to meet Carrie and 4 Argentines, who would cross the border with the legal maximum of $10,000 each in their possession. But to get there I had to sit for ten hours on a South American bus, driving through the freezing night, without heat, and unable to sleep—partially because I had was seemed to be a square pregnancy beneath my hoodie and down coat that occasionally pinched my skin if I moved the wrong way, partially because I was paranoid of being mugged. But I got on the bus and discovered the seat next to me was vacant. I stretched my legs diagonally. I took out the book a Dutch girl I met several months before had left me. I flipped on my light. Except it wouldn’t turn on. Of course, too much to ask for the seat lights to actually work. So I stared out the window at the black night. At the stars, at the car lights that passed every twenty or minutes or so. And finally, sometime around 3 am I drifted off to sleep. 

At 6 am we arrived. It was still pitch black outside, and my 3 hours of sleep left me disoriented rather than refreshed. But as I stepped off the bus, a bubbly, blonde Canadian girl called my name. She hugged me and told me how glad she was to see me. We had never met before, but she had been standing outside in the 14 degree F night to greet me. She worried I hadn’t bought the ticket or I had missed the bus. She worried I had run off with the money. She worried we’d miss each other in the night and I’d get mugged. Her imagination, like mine, was running wild with what could happen to $50,000 on a Bolivian bus. 

But we found each other and walked the 200 meters to the Alojamiento she and the Argentines were staying in. The doors had been padlocked for the night and it took about 5 full minutes of banging to wake the security guard. He finally let us in, as my ungloved hands were on the verge of frostbite. It was only marginally warmer inside. Carrie banged on the door of the room where Marc Antonio, the construction manager, and Ernesto, the driver were sleeping. We went up a flight of stairs and went into the room where Carrie had stayed with Marc Antonio’s two teenage daughters. The room, despite having no windows, felt only marginally warmer than it had been outside. But I removed my puffy layers and revealed the two money belts that covered my belly. I took them off and we pulled out the staples Alec had used to “secure” them. We unzipped them, and since they had already been full when I first saw them and put them around my body, I saw the most cash I had ever seen. And possibly ever will. 

This city, which was once a mythical land of riches to Europeans, now appeared as a depressed hell hole. As the four of us young women stood around the bed looking at 5 stacks of one-hundred dollar bills, the irony was not lost. Here we were pushing the importation laws to their limit in a city with the highest poverty rate in South America's poorest country. All to build a pretty new hostel with a swimming pool and horse-riding trail, and bar with a fancy pool table so that North American and European kids could come drink themselves silly on their “exotic” South American “adventure.”  

In the end, Carrie and the Argentines took their loot. And I slept a few hours before walking back to the bus station and buying a return ticket. 

They always warn you transportation is the most dangerous part. Its always in the movement from one place to another that the anthropologist is most vulnerable. Michelle Zimbalist Rosaldo was just walking down a footpath when she fell to her death.

Even more anthropologists have written on the perils of transportation in their fieldsite. Ellen Moodie writes about an bus crash in El Salvador and points out the ways global inequalities and institutions actually bore quite a bit of responsibility for a seemingly “accidental” incident. And certainly, anthropologists such as Lynn Stephen—who works with undocumented immigrants—can’t ignore the perils of transportation for such a population.

But you never think it will be you who is in that crash. I suppose because the academic anthropologist is among the first-world privileged and can choose to use “safer” forms of transportation than the public busses Moodie describes. And are privileged enough to be able to obtain visas rather than illegally crossing borders (aside from Bourgeois’s famous example).

And indeed, I was returning from getting my visa to remain in Bolivia. It was an annoying bureaucratic process that took far longer than it should have, but it was not impossible. And the kind (but paternalistic) Consulado kept assuring me they would give me the visa if only I could provide a little more documentation. Obtaining the visa was a vastly different experience than my middle class Bolivian friends have had when trying to get tourist visas for the U.S.

And as for transportation, I decided to avoid the 30 hour, somewhat comfortable tourist bus from Lima to La Paz and opted for what I assumed to be a more posh option. Flying to Juliaca would—yes—require me to take some local busses rather than a fancy full cama option. But would also be much faster and presumably safer. Of course, this was not exactly the case. As the taxi from Puno to Desaguadero went spinning off the road and those mortal thoughts when racing through my head, I never once thought “this isn’t supposed to happen.”

But I did think that later. As I reflected on the events, I couldn’t help but think of the endless stories you hear in the Andes of busses careening off the sides of cliffs. All the passengers and driver die. And they all remain nameless locals. This doesn’t happen to the tourist or anthropologist because they can afford the safer option. And that comforts us the night before we travel. We have paid our $70 rather than 120 Bs. (about $18) to travel, thus ensuring our safety. We will arrive in (relative) comfort and be happily on our way.

But the truth is, there is an element of luck. Sure, it seems the more you pay the better your chances are. But things like blockades, weather, and poorly maintained roads treat us all somewhat equally. Of course, some have the luxury to avoid travel when conditions are less than perfect. Some have the luxury of flying rather than taking any ground transportation at all. But even if I had flown directly to El Alto, I would have still had the blockades on the autopista to deal with. Money and status help, but they don’t take away risk completely.

And so, as I sat in the back seat of that recently-demolished taxi, and watched the Peruvian man next to me bow his head and cross himself, in a way I wished for something to thank other than luck for my survival. I had been given enough of a shake to be reminded that wealth and status can’t always protect you. I wanted something else to believe in to keep me safe. But I had nothing.

And the truth was, it wasn’t even myself that I was afraid for (except maybe in the moments when I was sure I was going to freeze to death). I have lived a good life. I have done amazing things and been loved by amazing people. And my attitude toward transportation is often: I would rather die in the process of going somewhere than sit idly at home, afraid to take a risk. And I stand by that still. But I was afraid for the people I love. Perhaps I’ve just read the introduction to Culture and Truth by Renato Rosaldo (Michelle’s widower) too many times, but I didn’t want my parents, sister, colleagues, professors, and friends to wish I had never come here. To wish they had stopped me or proposed I do local research. I had no regrets. I don’t want to be the cause of regret for anyone else either.

And so, having returned to La Paz, I sit in my cushy SoHocachi house, writing this on a day when all the choferes (taxi drivers, bus drivers, and voceodores) are striking and blockading the streets of La Paz. And I wonder if perhaps they don’t ask for enough. I argue with taxi drivers over the difference between 10 and 12 Bolivianos (about 30 cents) to take me home at 10pm. But that taxi driver could be keeping me out of harm. But that’s just the beginning. Perhaps better roads, more structured public transportation, more accountability. And this is starting to sound like I’m making a bigger government argument, but hell, this country has already nationalized about every industry it can get its hands on, and the Movimiento A Socialismo party is in power, so maybe that’s a moot point. A little more reliability for transportation would go a long way around here.

But at least the Cebras are a start. 

Moodie, Ellen
2005  Microbus Crashes and Coca-Cola Cash: The Value of Death in “Free-Market” El Salvador. American Ethnologist 33(1):63-80. 

Rosaldo, Renato
1993  Culture and Truth: The Remaking of Social Analysis. Boston: Beacon Press.

Stephen, Lynn
2007  Transborder Lives: Indigenous Ozxacans in Mexico, California, and Oregon. Durham: Duke University Press.

After much bureaucratic negotiating, I finally got my visa and was ready to be on my way. Rather than taking a 30 hour bus ride back to La Paz, I decided to take Amanda’s advice and fly from Lima to Juliaca (about 2 hours from the border) and then take a variety of busses back to La Paz.

The trip should go something like this:

9:15-11:00-flight from Lima to Juliaca

11:15-12:15-bus from Juliaca to Puno bus terminal

1:30-3:30-bus from Puno to Desaguadero

3:30-4:00-pass through the Perú/Bolivia border at Desaguadero

4:00-5:30-minibus from the border to El Alto

5:30-6:00-minibus from El Alto to the Prado

Yes, I would be back in time for Tuesday evening festivities I thought.

And then there were blockades. Surprisingly, the Peruvian side was worse. This was how it actually went:

I exited the plane at the Juliaca airport and stood in line for what seemed like hours to use the restroom. Once that was finally taken care of, I went outside and found a small coach-style bus bound for Puno. I took a seat behind a young Venezuelan guy who had grown up in the United States and studied “Security and Peace” in Tel Aviv. I rarely agreed with the assessments of the world he was making to the British couple in front of him. I was also lucky enough to be sitting beside a man traveling on business who kept insisting I have lunch with him. While showing me pictures of his wife. I told him I’d have to check on a bus to the border first.

The bus made it to Puno easily and drove around the small town on Lake Titicaca dropping people off at their hotels. The bus terminal was the last stop and 3 of us got off, only to be told there were road blocks and busses to the border were not running. The three of us: a young Peruvian man, a middle-aged Argentinean woman, and myself, kept giving each other frustrated looks. The woman asked a taxi driver if there was any other way to go to Desaguadero. For 100 soles a piece he said he would drive us “the long way.” We haggled down to 50 each, bought some snacks and hopped in the back of the car.

“The long way,” he told us, would take four hours. I ate some of my Ritz crackers and nodded off to sleep. But with the 3 of us stuffed in the back seat (one other man was in the front with the driver, apparently having contracted him earlier), the complete lack of heat in the car (like all Andean cars), and the curvy mountain roads, it was not an ideal sleeping environment.

About 2 hours in, we were all awake and chatting a little. And then we rounded a corner as it started snowing. As we drove along, not far below the mountain tops (the road was at 4800 meters at this point) the snow accumulated and was beautiful. The Peruvian guy took out his cell phone and started snapping photos. I grabbed for my camera and got one of the mountain in front of us. I leaned back so the Argentinean woman (who had been stuck in the middle seat) could snap one out the window on my side. And then suddenly we slid. We crashed through 4 barrier posts. We spun in a circle 3 times. I thought to myself “is this how I’m going to die?”

We fortunately (and I mean that with all the gravity the word can have) flew off the road right where we did, because there was no steep embankment. About 70% of the road in that section of the drive did have a steep descent off to the side. But we were lucky. The car hadn’t been equipped with seatbelts, but no one flew too far out of their seat. The driver’s-side window shattered, but no on was cut. 

The driver’s door was dented and wouldn’t open so the man in the front got out to let him climb across. The car was badly dented in several places. Two tires were completely flat. And the engine wouldn’t start. I had been sleeping on and off, but had stayed awake enough to know that it had been at least an hour driving since we passed by the last lonely home along the road. With the engine dead and the window busted, the snow and wind were coming into the car. “No, this is how people die in the Andes, I thought: Stranded, and they freeze to death.” I’ve seen the movies about plane crashes and cannibalism….

Fortunately, not long after a man in a pickup truck came driving by in the opposite direction. The Peruvian man flagged him down, and tried to negotiate some sort of transportation. The man was refusing, but even before he left, a station wagon occupied by a husband and wife drove up. With only minimal convincing they decided they would turn around and take us to Desaguadero. The taxi driver stayed with the car and we promised to send police or a tow truck his way. The four passengers piled into the back seat of the station wagon, with all of our luggage in the back. 

We were on our way again, much less comfortably, and much more slowly. What added to the lagging time were the several police checkpoints we had to go through. Each time, the man driving would be questioned as to why he had a license and registration for a private vehicle, but appeared to be carrying strangers. Cause let’s face it. Nobody was going to believe this gringa was in anyway related to these kind campesinos. After explaining the story, the police were always kind and let us pass. Four hours after the crash, we stopped at the final checkpoint in which another man convinced the vehicle owners to let him ride in the back end of the car for 60 km. My feet and hands were numb from the cold. My butt and thighs were numb from the position I had been sitting in, unable to move for four hours. And I was nauseous from the curvy roads and probably whiplash from the crash. The Argentinean woman had to ask twice to pull over so she could vomit.

Eventually, after 6 hours in that position (making a total of 8 hours in transit) we arrived in Desaguadero. But of course, it was 7:30 pm by this time, and the border had been shut since 6pm. Alas, the 3 of us found a hospedaje with 3 beds in a room for 10 soles each. We watched some futbol, ate some chifa, and went to sleep. 

At 7am we awoke and went straight to the border. We got our stamps, I used my shiny (not really) new fancy visa de objeto determinado, and we found some minibuses headed for La Paz. The Peruvian man was hesitating as to which bus to take, and ended up getting separated from Luz (I now knew her name) and I. The bus got filled to capacity with the 2 of us, several local Bolivians, and some Colombian university students traveling on holiday. 

Ninety minutes later we made it to the El Alto bus terminal, and I helped Luz get with her 2 large suitcases to the Ralfbus office to claim her waiting ticket for her home country. I wandered over to Avenida 16 de Julio and looked for a taxi. None were passing so I eventually just hopped on another minibus headed for the Prado. We took to the Autopista and I thought perhaps it would all be smooth from there. 

But alas, it was late April in La Paz, and in the build up to May Day, the COB was protesting by blockading the main thoroughfare from El Alto to La Paz. So halfway down, the bus had to back up, turn around, travel the wrong way on the highway, make an illegal U turn to go the other way (but still the “wrong” way for that side of the road), and turn off onto a side street. I eventually did make it to the Prado, and went directly to Paceña Salteña for lunch. I sat down to eat at 12:15, 27 hours after I boarded the flight bound for Juliaca. So I saved 3 hours by not taking the bus. And the cost really wasn’t that much more than the bus. But I think, with all I went through, a nice full cama tourist bus for 30 hours would have been preferable.

Titanes del Ring events are some of the most popular tourist attractions in La Paz, but tourism in Bolivia is not a big business compared to many surrounding nations. Bolivia garners roughly 300,000 tourists per year, while neighboring Perú attracts more than two million. So Bolivia tends to retain a sense of being somewhat “undiscovered” for many travelers. In fact, one day when I asked some Ekko hostel bar workers [some of whom I have discussed previously] how much of the “Gringo Trail” they had been through, Dr. Joe declared “Bolivia’s the best. No one even knows where Bolivia is!” [Indeed, the wikipedia entry I linked here doesn't even include La Paz on its list of Gringo Trail "highlights."]

The Andean Secrets advertisements and the Cholitas Luchadoras themselves appeal to travelers’ sense of adventure, inviting them to experience something “crazy” and unpredictable; something unknown at home. Many backpackers related that other young tourists had told them that there would be fireworks, “midget tossing,” and “women on women action” as part of the show. These comments, along with those suggesting the show might be “brutal,” “disturbingly real,” or “crazy” suggest that some travelers hope for something understandable, yet beyond the bounds of what can be found in travel locations closer to home. 

This desire for adventure became strikingly apparent to me on a bus ride in 2009, when I heard a group of Dutch young men recommend a specific tour guide to some women who were leaving La Paz for the Peruvian Amazon the next day. The men, who had just come from the Amazon, suggested that the women ask for their previous tour guide because “He’s the best. He’s crazy.” They then recounted stories of him throwing a piranha at his wards and picking up pythons. I also heard tourists boarding a bus to a wrestling match joke about combining Peruvian and Bolivian “cultural” experiences; they envisioned holding a rave at Machu Picchu that featured midget wrestling and strobe lights. 

Not surprisingly, by far the most popular tourist attraction in La Paz was riding a bike down “death road” [which I have written on briefly, before]. Officially known as Yungas [Jungle] Road, this 38-mile road leads from La Paz to the city of Coroico. It was built as a single lane width gravel road in the nineteen-thirties, and includes some overhangs of 1800 feet with no guardrails. It is estimated that between two hundred and three hundred vehicles have plummeted off the road, leading the Inter American Development Bank to bestow on it the title of World’s Most Dangerous Road. Particularly hazardous portions of the road were closed in 2006, leaving it open to biking tours. Despite the fact that about 20 cyclists have died on the road since 1998, it remains popular because of the amazing scenery it provides, and the simple sentiment that “you can’t find this anywhere else.” 

There was a seeming refusal on the travelers’ parts to believe that the death road was truly dangerous, despite the fact that several people per month were sent to the hospital after minor falls, and one woman even died while biking during my time in La Paz. Cater argues that “the prime motivation for the practice of adventure is thrill and excitement.” Beck further suggests that even though adventure experiences are understood within a discourse of risk, tourists that engage in them have no desire to actually be harmed. Instead, it is the unpredictability of the experience that attracts them. As one German woman proclaimed on facebook, “Today I survived the World’s Most Dangerous Road. Just like 50 other people every day.” Much like exotic animals, crazy tour guides, and death-defying bike rides, “cholitas” wrestling fulfills the need for an epic and hazardous journey into the unknown exotic continent of South America and legendary stories to tell other backpackers and friends at home, upon return.

Cholita wrestling is quite obviously a scripted spectacle and further, clearly resembles the exhibition wrestling of the United States most travelers have seen numerous times on television. No matter what travelers expect on the bus ride, once the show starts they discover “its far too WWF” to be unknown. So while tourists are often motivated by a desire for unknown experiences, something more nuanced motivates travelers to see the Cholitas Luchadoras events. The Andean Secrets flyer in fact clearly depicts an audience made up of gringos and gringas, with piercings, brightly colored hair and sunglasses. 

In this case, “the unknown” creates a focus primarily on difference as something to be accumulated. Whether situated in natural landscape formations or in the local people, difference is there to be collected in the form of stories and pictures, primarily shared with friends at home through facebook posts and compared with other travelers when flipping through previous pictures on their digital cameras in the hostel bar. 

I concur with Adler’s assertion that travel is a “performed art” which includes the anticipation and daydreaming that precede the journey as well as reflection during and after the journey. Molz points out that these performances include the consumption of symbolic items that allow travelers to perform and recognize each other as legitimate. Indeed, while tourism may expose travelers to “traditional” cultural practices, their consumption behaviors are motivated by the desire to possess a symbol of those cultural practices. And while an ugly llama sweater may be requisite attire in the Ekko bar, consumption also includes the accumulation of non-commodified symbols, such as photographs or the identification bracelets from hostels that many travelers collect on their wrists. The photographs, including those of the Cholitas Luchadoras, function as a friendly competition of evidencing the strange, unusual, exotic, and “risky” things travelers have seen on their trips. 

Adler, Judith
1989 Travel as Performed Art. American Journal of Sociology, 94:1366-1391.

Beck, Ulrich
1992  Risk Society: Towards a New Modernity. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Cater, Carl I.
2006  Playing with risk? participant perceptions of risk and management implications in adventure tourism. Tourism Management 27(2):317-325.

Molz, Jennie Germann
2006  Cosmopolitan Bodies: Fit to Travel and Traveling to Fit. Body Society 12:1-21.

I don’t really know who taught me the game, but I imagine it was some upperclassperson my freshman year of high school. We all learned: the nice, jenz, jb, bs, and I. And we, in turn, taught our fair share of freshmen as we got older.

The game of Euchre is similar to Spaids and Hearts, but to me is better. It requires more thought and strategy. And knowing how your partner plays can make or break a trick if not the game. It is a distinctly Midwestern game; I’ve never met anyone who knows the game who didn’t spend a significant amount of time in the Midwest. At least as far as wikipedia can tell me, it was brought by German settlers to Michigan and spread from there. And maybe, just a little, I like it because its distinctly Midwestern. It is to be taken very seriously. It is not a game of luck but a game that tests your stamina, your sharpness, your insight. It is not a recreational game. In fact, it reminds me of the way Chuck Klosterman describes Midwest Power Drinking:

People in the Midwest drink differently than everywhere else I’ve ever been; its far less recreational. You have to stay focused, you have to work fast, and you have to swallow constantly.

I once dealt the perfect hand of Euchre. I was playing on a bus to some nerdy interscholastic event with jenz as my partner. Jb and massman were our opponents. I distributed the cards and flipped over a 10 of spaids. Massman, who was sitting to my left told me to pick it up. Before I could even discard he had said he was going it alone and displayed his full hand: right bower, left bower, ace, king, queen. All trump. Otherwise known as a Ray Charles.

And not long after I went to college and the ubiquity of Euchre disappeared from my life. Now, those of you who know a bit of my history (or have read my cv) may note that I attended university in the heart of the Midwest. And yet, apparently, the student body had enough geographic diversity that Euchre never became a mainstay. I do remember playing it once, while camping on a Chicago-suburban living room floor after shooting a student film all day. But even then, the two of us that knew the game had to teach everyone else (from places like New York, Atlanta, and LA). I continued to play occasionally, usually only with high school friends while home for a holiday, or after a wedding rehearsal dinner. But these times have become so few and far between that the game rarely crosses my mind.

And then, Tuesday night, it popped into my head. Some of the Death Road guide guys were going bowling and invited me along. As instructed I walked along the Prado until I was across from the Post Office. I found the hotdog cart and squeezed past it. I went down the narrow staircase and past the scantily occupied lunch tables and found the two hand-set lanes. I was late and had to bowl five frames in a row to catch up. First bowl a gutterball. Second bowl 8 pins. Second frame, a spare. Third frame, a strike. Fourth frame, a respectable 8. After that I don’t really recall. The remainder of the game involved plenty of complaining that the pin-setting guys were setting like they were on acid, and sarcastic claims of being a “gentleman” when taking the lane that was less warped. The guys also did a fair amount of farting, sometimes directly on one another, and even on Tasha, the only other woman in attendance, but never on me. However, when one of the guys I hadn’t met before suggested to Justin that he shouldn’t fart so close to me, his comment strikingly reminded me of Steve’s 7th grade comment, “Yeah, but Nell doesn’t count as a girl.” Justin replied “Its ok, Nell’s one of the guys.”  

But that’s not important. That’s not the point of the story.

After finishing the game (in 4th place of 7, with 109 points), the three guides that had Wednesday off decided to go to the brewery with Tasha and I. We arrived, ordered fancy drinks (white Russians and long island ice teas), and settled down at a table with a deck of cards. It was Pete that suggested we play a game, and suddenly it dawned on me. Pete is from Indiana. Indiana is in the Midwest. People in the Midwest who play cards play Euchre. I could barely get the question out of my mouth without squealing: “Do you play Euchre?”

And of course he said yes.

So we had to teach Tasha and Justin the game while Rick put his head down and slept. And in the end we didn’t even finish because everyone was tired. This also kept Justin and I from officially losing (the score was 8-6 when we quit). So it was not any spectacular game of Euchre. It had been several years since I last played and I think I’ve lost a bit of my intuition about the game. I did, however, manage to take 3 tricks with the Ace, King, and Queen of trump by leading with a 10 of trump out of the gate—a highly unorthodox move. But in the end, it was just a slow learner’s game.

What was incredible about it though, was the fact that I was in Bolivia, playing a game that is generally confined to the Midwestern United States with 2 Kiwis. And I started thinking about the processes that brought us to this point. First, German immigration to the Midwest, and specifically Michigan, began around 1820 but intensified due to unsuccessful European revolutions around 1848 (which coincidentally is right around when ol’ Bernhardt Stroh set up shop in Detroit...See, I knew Klosterman’s thoughts on Midwestern Power Drinking were somehow connected).

Then there was the proliferation of the game throughout the Midwest. As the decades elapsed, farmers moved to cities. Children moved to university towns, and the Euchre players from Michigan radiated out across the Midwest due to no small number of economic and migratory processes. And by the 1990s (though probably long before), high school kids in places like Heyworth, Illinois and Carmel, Indiana were playing Euchre.

But that is only half the story. Bolivia is also important. Tourism in Bolivia is not a big business relative to many of its surrounding nations. Bolivia garners roughly 300,000 tourists per year, while neighboring Perú attracts more than 2 million tourists a year (Library of Congress 2006). This vast difference is attributed to Bolivia’s political instability and lack of first-class accommodations (Library of Congress 2006), but may also be a product of the fact that the government of Bolivia pays little attention to tourism, in contrast to Peru (Ypeij and Zorn 2007). So while Bolivia is a major stopping point between the Andes of Perú, Lake Titicaca, and destinations in Argentina or northern Chile (Ypeij and Zoomers 2006)., it retains a sense of being somewhat “undiscovered” for many of the travelers. Those travelers that do spend time in La Paz, tend to be those seeking outdoor trekking opportunities. Hyuana Potosi, “the world’s easiest 6000 meter mountain,” is nearby, as well as hiking opportunities on Chacaltaya Mountain, or treks to more jungle-like areas such as Coroico. And this market for outdoor, adventure, tourism is no doubt what created an opportunity for biking down Death Road. Ten years ago, a New Zealander who had been living in La Paz started the first company, the one Pete, Justin, and Rick work for. 

And all of these processes--different modes of Globalization since european Colonialism, Economic Migration, Revolution in europe, Urbanizatio in the midwest, "Instability" and Economic Sanctions related to the Drug Trade in bolivia, Neoliberalism in la paz, expat Flexible Citizenship, Cosmopolitanism of travelers and tourist companies, Flexible Accumulation of microbrewed beer, and the Friction of it all--come together in the most unexpected of ways.

I told you Euchre is a game that must be taken seriously.

“Ok, every man in here is wearing a dress, but how many of them will sleep with me?” Nick sat down next to me at the Ekko bar and winked through his wire rimmed glasses.

“I only know of 2.”

“The Colombians?”

I nodded solemnly.

It was 10 pm on a Tuesday, ladies’ night at the Ekko bar, and all the “ladies” along with any man dressed as a “lady” were entitled to free jelly (Jell-O) shots. But like many college freshmen may say about Halloween, its just an excuse to wear scanty amounts of clothing. Considering the shots are worth about .50 U$, the motivation has little to do with the monetary value of free drinks.

And ladies’ night happens all over town. At the Irish Rose hostel around the corner, its on Wednesday.

This weekend, at the invitation-only grand opening party for La Paz’s newest nightclub (I begged a friend to take me as his date), I overheard Ekko’s manager say he would change his ladies’ night to Thursday to coordinate with the new club’s ladies’ night.

In some ways, I enjoy the creativity inspired by Ekko’s ladies’ night. Backpackers don’t have a closet full of clothes to choose from. Smaller-statured men borrow skirts from female friends. Others flit their t-shirts through the neck to create a bikini-like effect. Eyeliner and lipstick are passed around the bar like joints in a college dorm.

But at the same time, the cross dressing that occurs for ladies’ night exists in the context of an explicit heterosexual orientation of many hostel events.

This is not to say that queer-identified guests are ostracized or unwelcome. I have met several gay men backpacking in South America and have reported fruitful social or love lives in hostels. Though they strain to find gay spaces in cities like La Paz, they recognize the hidden nature of gay life in many places in Latin America, and seem content with the small pockets of “gay life” they’ve been able to access.

The lesbian travelers I have spoken with express more disappointment. I have met noticeably fewer of them, and even in places more recognized as “cosmopolitan” or “gay friendly,” like Buenos Aires, they have not found explicitly lesbian spaces. And while I have heard both gay men and lesbians complain that there are not more potential sexual partners available (both among local populations and fellow travelers), I have not heard any complain about feeling unwelcome. Indeed, the traveling crowd tends to be young, liberal, and open to new experiences (though, obviously, that is a generalization with plenty of exceptions).

But hostels like Ekko also have implicitly and exclusively heterosexual activities like afternoon speed dating, in which the number of men and women were required to be even. Bar staff were required to participate or not in order to ensure equivalent numbers. I was most taken aback by one conversation prompt asking “If I used to be a different gender, would you mind?” Most people answered that they wouldn’t mind with very little thought or discussion, but much nervous laughter.

And so, as I said, I appreciate the creativity of ladies’ night, but cannot ignore the context in which it exists. The lack of attention to the politics of cross dressing, particularly in a place where gay pride parades attract 20,000 people in a metro area of over 2 million and few explicitly gay spaces exist, particularly by people who see their costumes as an opportunity to reveal their bodies in hopes of attracting the opposite sex, particularly in a space that organizes the event for the pure purpose of making more money on a Tuesday night, leaves me concluding it is a superficial use of gender inversion, devoid of political statement that serves to reinforce heterosexual assumptions about gender roles. And more specifically, reinforces a view of femininity as explicitly performative and sexualized. Though at least two young Israeli women dressed as dapper fedora-clad men last week.

“Oh, look! Here,” he said, as he pointed up at the door marked 658. And yes, across the top of the wooden door, in what appeared to be permanent marker, was scrawled “Fuegos Artificiales BOMBAS.” The old vendedora knew what she was talking about I guess.

It was 4 july and we had planned to watch Tour d France, but even Pete the biking expert didn’t expect it to finish before 1pm. So instead, like two good little expats, we set off on a mission to find fireworks. After several phone calls to people we thought might know, we decided to follow the tip to try Calle Rodriguez. Calle Rodriguez sits between the touristy Sagarnaga neighborhood, and my own neighborhood of San Pedro. Its one of those places that during the day is lined with vendors in makeshift stalls, using bright tarps as awnings, and giving the street a carnival feeling. Rounding the corner from Calle Linares, we walked uphill and saw only fruits and vegetables for sale. After a block we decided to ask a woman selling carrots and corn if she knew where to find fuegos artificiales. Pete, in his Spanish that makes mine seem almost fluent, asked the woman, and she told us to look just up the street for a Casa en Venta. The son of her friend sells fireworks there. We walked up a bit more, unsure that we had understood properly that we were looking for a house for sale, when I noticed the next tan building had painted on its second floor in crisp blue letters: “Casa en Venta.”

We walked up to the door and sure enough we saw the hand-written advertisement for fuegos artificiales. There were four buzzers scattered around the door, so Pete pushed the one closest to the writing, which was labeled Gustavo. There was no response. “We could try the phone number I guess,” I said, and he nodded. Under the word “BOMBAS” was an 8 digit Bolivian number which I put in my phone and called. I usually need to psych myself up for phone conversations with people I don’t know. Even in English. Even when they’re expecting me to call. But somehow the strangeness of all this made me forget to hesitate until I had already pushed send.

[translated]
“Hello?”
“Hi, I’d like to buy fireworks.”
“Oh. Ok. Well, what type would you like to buy?”
“Oh. Eh……[looks a Pete whispers “what kind do we want?” He shrugs.] Just little ones I guess.”
“Yes, but what kind?”
“Well what kind to you have?”
“I have all kinds. When can you meet?”
“Oh, I’m at the door now. I saw the number on 658.”
“Oh, on Calle Rodriguez? Can you wait 5 minutes? I will come there.”

And so we waited. For 35 minutes (because that’s approximately what “5 minutes” means here). We discussed what might be under the tarps we leaned against, which had obviously been left by some vendor who was taking the day off. I briefly considered checking, but thought the woman across the street selling api might start yelling, thinking I was trying to steal something. Two gringos standing around on this street just talking for 30 minutes looks suspicious enough. 

Perhaps I felt suspicious because the whole operation felt very illicit to me. I grew up in a state where fireworks are illegal. They’re easy enough to get, but you have to drive a few hours and cross the border to Indiana. Inevitably, practically straddling the state line, rises a giant red barn-like building. “FIREWORKS!!! This exit,” a billboard will announce. Presumably, one just pulls off the highway, stocks up on bottle rockets, some multi-break shells, and a roman candle or two, turns right around, and heads back to Illinois. I certainly had a fair share of family friends that would do this. I never went along, but I was privy to watching the displays put on off rooftops or out of farmhouse backyards at July 4th parties. I’m not sure what exactly could happen to someone caught possessing fireworks in Illinois. It never really seemed a pressing matter, yet, I think the illegality of it gave it a bit more of a sense of danger. A sense of excitement. 

Pete on the other hand, grew up in Indiana. He says its legal to sell fireworks there, but not to set them off. I contemplated how this slightly different history, one separated by only about one hundred miles and a few sports team rivalries, might affect our attitudes about standing here, on a random street in La Paz, waiting for some random man to come meet us and sell us things that could potentially seriously injure ourselves or others. And I have no idea what laws in Bolivia are about fireworks. I’m guessing there are none, but that may be a silly assumption on my part. Am I the only one that feels like this is one of the sketchiest things I’ve ever actively participated in?

Eventually a man walked up and asked “did you call me?” What ensued was a very complex conversation about fireworks consisting mainly of hand motions replicating explosions and noises like a high pitched “pewwww, pewwww” and a lower “booooooooom.” It was clear this man was hoping to sell us some sort of fireworks display with multiple colors and three different explosions that all happened at the same time. This for the low low price of 1300 Bs. (about $185). I asked if there was anything for about 50 Bs. He said no, but for 350 Bs. he had something that also included many colors but the noises used to describe it were less spectacular. We discussed in English whether to do it and realized we only had 300 Bs. between the two of us, so I tried to negotiate. The man took us inside 658 to the courtyard and took a padlock off the first door on the left. However, the deadbolt was still locked and he yelled several times for someone to come down and bring the key. No one arrived, or answered his yells. He told us to leave and come back in 5 minutes, and just hit the bell for Gustavo when we returned. 

We walked out and I found I had a text message from my earlier tipster saying Hipermaxi probably has fireworks as well. We decided maybe we should just walk over to the Sopocachi supermarket and leave our friend Gustavo without a purchase. So we did just that, enjoying the warm early afternoon sun on the mostly downhill walk. We arrived at Hipermaxi and wandered around the aisles, with no luck. We asked a stock person who informed us they had none, so we decided to buy ingredients for mac n’ cheese instead of fireworks (that’s an all-american patriotic dish, right?). No easy mac today. They didn’t have any elbow macaroni, so we settled on bowties. In all we spent around 100 Bs. Far more than we would have on 2 nice meals at a touristy restaurant. But the cheese itself was about 50 Bs. 

We went back to the swanky biker flat in upper Sopocachi, and set to work. Trying to convert the recipe into the nonstandard types of measuring devices we had at our disposal was a chore. Once that was settled we continued mixing spices, adding milk, grating cheese, boiling (which takes forever at high altitudes) mixtures, pouring into pans, adding noodles, and baking. Of course the baking time was about double what the recipe said, but in the end, we had a not so pretty (feo to be exact), but cheesy, tasty, saucy mess that somewhat resembled bowties and cheese. 

Later in the evening, after being told that one of the local backpacker hostels was having an “Anti-American July 4th Party” I made my way over to the area near the bus terminal. I climbed the four flights of stairs, and went directly to the bar for my free shot (you know, because I’m American). It was a nasty rum, but I filled up on locally brewed Saya beer afterwards, which washed the taste down far more pleasantly than Paceña, Bock, Huari, or Authentica ever could. I was just wearing a gray hooded shirt and my black fleece, but was rather jealous that Pete showed up later wearing a long sleeve bright red t shirt, with an Indianapolis Colts tee over the top. Alas, my patriotism failed.

Fortunately, we were both fulfilled when Chad, the bartender told us he had successfully found fireworks for sale in the touristy witches market. Sure, on one hand our adventures with Gustavo lacked an appropriate culmination, but at least we’d get to see some explosions. So once all those from the US had consumed their free shots, Chad called everyone to the roof deck for some fun with fire. First up, 2 bottle rockets. Despite their precarious leaning against the larger circular firework framework, they were lit and flew up into the air without a hitch. Once they were aloft however, they made about as much light as those lifesavers candies do when you bite them in the dark, and didn’t even pop loudly. Fortunately (or unfortunately?) the other firework set was more exciting. There were four explosive packages, wrapped in different colored papers (which I assumed meant they would explode in different colors) attached to a circular scaffold that somewhat resembled a double tiered tomato plant support. It took a bit of discussion to decide where and how to light the thing, but once several know-it-all guys from the US had their input, Chad announced “I’m probably about to injure you all” and held the lighter to wherever it was the consensus had agreed upon. Almost immediately fire started shooting out of the thing horizontally. The tomato stand framework bounced from the picnic table to the floor and then over to the corner. Everyone dashed to get behind the clear glass panel next to the door back to the bar. Most of us spilled our giant mugs of beer on ourselves or at least on the floor. And then the fire ball stopped shooting. We all breathed relief. The 3 people that had been trapped in the far corner moved out and toward the door, and we all started to go inside. And then it started again. Another flaming projectile toward those remaining outside, and then it finally died for good. Oh, Bolivia. You did not disappoint me today.

“Amiga, do you want Machu Picchu?”
“Would you like a tour?”
“Seniorita, what are you looking for?”

“El baño.”

I walked out of customs in Cusco and into a virtual shopping mall of tour agencies. Each of them with large color posters advertising Inca sites or “cultural” offerings. I didn’t pause long enough to inspect them, and only after getting in a taxi did it occur to me I should have taken a photo (the one below is from another travel blog). But it was striking, especially, because it provided such a contrast with what I had seen at the La Paz/El Alto airport just an hour earlier (and as a side note, it was one of those amazing flights that left at 9:15 am and arrived at 9:05 am).

In trying to edit an article (which I’m beginning to think I can’t ethically write anyway), I’ve tried to compare tourism in Bolivia and Perú. However, I was last in Perú in 2006, and then only in Lima. But after having been in Cusco a mere 10 hours, I am amazed by the way tourism has inundated this city. I have no doubt this is not a recent phenomenon, though I haven’t looked into the history. I’m sure Annelou Yepij would know. In any event, the phenomenon is understandable. Cusco is situated with excellent proximity to several amazing Incan and pre-Incan sites. The city itself is a relic of an Incan history (and now I’m unfortunately starting to sound like National Geographic). La Paz, in contrast, boasts "death road” and “cholita wrestling.” Its close to Tiwanaku, but that doesn’t have quite the draw of the Picchu. 

And possibly, this is why I feel like I’m on vacation. Flying felt like a luxury this morning, especially since it wasn’t technically necessary. I bought the flight two weeks ago when the border between Perú and Bolivia was full of blockades on the Peruvian side. Essentially a Canadian mining company wants to start work on a site near Lake Titicaca and the local people are protesting because the Peruvian government won’t put a stop to it. For the last 2 months, periodically, the people have been blockading the border, even threatening to throw dynamite on any boat that tries to cross the lake into Puno. And so, having people to meet in Cusco, and a somewhat tight timeframe, I didn’t want to take any chances, and coughed up the $160 (plus $25 airport tax) and bought a flight. Hopefully, when I try to get back to La Paz next week the border will be open to busses and I won’t have to buy a return ticket. 

But this is not anything terribly new for the Andes. Protest seems to pervade everyday life. As Antonio once said “This is La Paz. There is always protest.” It’s something the more elite classes declare matter-of-factly, and the working class people who more often participate in protest proclaim with pride. Even the official slogan of the 200 year anniversary of the revolution (not liberation) claimed “Somos un fuego que no se apaga.”

And thus, I shouldn’t have been surprised when I arrived at the La Paz airport this morning and found it covered in protest posters. Many contained slogans of the huelga. Others provided reasoning: comparisons of salaries of government workers in different sectors, and demonstrations of the exploitation of miners, health workers, and teachers. There was even a mannequin with a characture face that I think is Goni, but if anyone has another thought, please let me know.  

And that for me, in many ways demonstrates a difference between the two countries. I in no way want to claim that Bolivians take protest more seriously than Peruvians. Obviously, protest all over the Andes is very committed and aggressive. But I think on a governmental level, while Perú encourages tourism and gains a great amount of income from its “national treasures,” the GOB has imposed visa requirements—I believe in protest of US and European visa requirements for Bolivian citizens—that tend to limit tourism rather than encourage it. And to a large extent, I very much agree with Evo’s de-neoliberalization strategies, as well as understanding the need for visa equity. And I am certainly not one to argue that tourism is necessarily a good thing that should be encouraged.

Or maybe it’s really just that I like keeping Bolivia a little off the beaten (Gringo Trail) path.