Bolivia 2012: February 2012

Friday, February 24, 2012

Tiwanaku

20 Feb 2012

Sorry for the belated post... over the weekend I took a day trip to Tiwanaku (also called Tiahuanaco), about 1.5 hrs bus ride west of La Paz. The ancient city of Tiwanaku formed about 1000 BC. By 700 AD this empire dominated modern day Bolivia, southern Peru, northeast Argentina, and northern Chile, with a population of 50,000. Tiwanaku served as a major political and religious center, used a system of raised agricultural fields called sukakullos which produced enough food for 100,000 people, built temples of sandstone blocks some weighing >100 tons, and complexes astrologically aligned so the open doorways capture the sun during spring and autumn equinoxes. Unfortunately, eventually the Spaniards looted and destroyed much of the city; stones were dragged off to build other buildings like churches, or blown with dynamite to make gravel for railways. Today, excavations continue but much remains underground or destroyed.

Tiwanaku pictures

Tuesday, February 21, 2012

Carnival Weekend

Bolivia celebrates Carnival the week before Lent every year and it is a huge, splashy affair. Thousands of people go to Oruro, a 3.5 hr bus ride south of La Paz, every year to see the majority of the parades and dancing. The carnival festivities represent the combining of Christian and Andean beliefs and much of the activities supposedly show thanks to Pachamama, or mother earth. However, people drink liters of beer and it gets crazy down there so I thought I’d stay and enjoy the festivities in La Paz.

Which meant that I got bombarded with water balloons, super soakers, and soap spray cans! Back in the day, people poured the inside of raw eggs out and replaced them with water to throw at others in celebration of Carnival. Now, they (mostly kids) use water balloons, and they are RUTHLESS! All I wanted to do was watch the parade – I wore a long poncho, thinking I’d have nothing to worry about. Nope, these kids deliberately went up and sprayed soap foam in my FACE probably 5 times. I cinched my poncho hat so it completely covered my face, only to be dumped with water from a bucket unleashed from a balcony above me. Hundreds of kids crowded the street in ponchos running after each other with water guns, soap sprays, water balloons, and other arsenal – sometimes in groups chasing down others – it was chaos!

Carnival Weekend - Plaza de Estudiantes pictures

Lots of kids walking around with super soakers

I looked a little something like this

People in ponchos

The people on this balcony poured buckets of water onto people below!

One of the bands in the parade

Saturday, February 18, 2012

Back at Hospital Del Nino

Feb 17, 2012

This week I returned to Hospital Del Nino. I’m working with one of the pulmonologists, Dra. Tejerina, who is outrageously awesome. She is the quintessential bubbly, personable, playful pediatrician, with apparent national recognition in her work with Downs Syndrome patients. Interestingly, I haven’t seen many pulmonary patients—we spent two days doing mostly well-child checks sprinkled with diarrhea, constipation, and fevers. Another day we had a Downs Syndrome clinic, and the other 2 days we rounded in the infectious disease ward. There were three kidos with TB, all with severe malnutrition and one in a coma with TB meningitis. This morning I was in clinic so I didn’t see it, but one of those girls died, I heard from sudden cardiac arrest. It’s crazy that these kids aren’t on continuous monitors – in the US they’d be in the ICU. I remember how her dad looked at her yesterday as he put a blanket over her toothpick legs. So sad.

On a lighter note, I had a great day in clinic. I brought a bunch of toys from the US – little things like Hot Wheels, jump ropes, sticky slappers and bubble blowers. It was too cute to see the change from sniffly cranky kiddo to giddy grinning toddler skipping around the room. One of the parents made the poor boy say gracias maybe 5 times… it’s amazing how such a small thing in the US could mean so much to the kids here. Also, at one point when we had a 5 month old crying unstoppably, my preceptor asked me to SING! Well, I thought, happy birthday in Spanish is pretty much all I’ve got. So I sang “A spoonful of sugar” from Mary Poppins and danced around, pretty sure this was hopeless. But all of the sudden she stopped crying and just stared at me! Haha whatever works!

Dra. Tejerina and I in clinic

Sunday, February 12, 2012

Lago (Lake) Titicaca

This weekend, Tanya (the other CFHI student) and I spent the weekend at Lago (Lake) Titicaca! It’s 190 km x 80 km, and the highest altitude lake in the world. It took about 4 hours to get there by bus and boat, and then another 1.5 hrs by boat to get to Isla del Sol (Island of the Sun).

The lake itself is gorgeous! Pristine blue waters bordered by terraced mountains that still grow barley and quinoa as they did centuries ago. The terraces flourished with harvests probably 1500 years ago, each standing over 1 m high and thoughtfully constructed with layers of stones, clay, gravel, soil, and top soil. The terraces run in parallel lines and water-filled ditches used to run between them providing irrigation during dry seasons. Today, the beachside city of Copacobana and the islands including Isla del Sol, are still home to Aymaran people, who may be descendants of the Incans.

The funny story is that I decided to bring FOUR liters of water in addition to all kinds of extra clothes for rainy weather. This resulted in a backpack and bag of about 35 lbs. I didn’t realize we were going to do a lot of hiking and given the altitude and my almost keeling over in respiratory distress our poor tour guide hauled my bag all the way up the mountain to our hotel for us! Needless to say I thanked him profusely and tipped him well.

We hiked up to the Temple of the Sun, saying hola to several donkeys, pigs, and sheep along the way. After about half an hour we arrived at the weather-beaten rectangular complex of sandstone that during Inca times was believed to be the place where the god Viracocha created the sun. It was a major ceremonial complex and place of worship then. The whole area was such a peaceful break from the bustle of La Paz. It actually reminds me of the Shire in Lord of the Rings, with small hedges separating thatch-roofed houses, sheep, donkeys, and pigs trotting about, clothes blowing in the breeze, rolling hillsides.

The hotel had a beautiful lakeside view (well, pretty much anywhere you put a hotel on the island it will have a lakeside view). There was no heat or hot water… but the food was excellent- we had delicious trout (Trucha) for lunch and dinner. Fishermen catch trout easily from the lake so restaurants serve it up everywhere. In the morning we hiked back down to the edge of the island and took a boat back to the Copacabana, the city on the edge of the lake.