Hanging out with Gringos, Living In A shithole

I hung out one night with Daniel, the tall blonde ‘Steve Erwin loving’ American guy that I had met in the gringo hostel; he actually turns out to be a really cool guy. Regaling me of stories of living in a house with seven beautiful college girls back in his home town, or having nude parties where everyone shows up in nothing, getting high and all that other typical American college frat boy shit. Also refreshingly he turns out to be a pretty liberal, open minded guy rather than a flag waving idiot that only came here to party and act like an ass. He even gave me a copy of On The Road by Jack Kerouac, a book that someone had given to him and an apparent classic about basically what I’m doing, that is travelling with no money.

One late afternoon we ran into each other next to the central market and just like everyone else that visits La Paz, Daniel had spent the day marveling at the unique suburban landscape that houses tiny little suburbs at the top of what is effectively a canyon. But unlike most people he had decided to actually go hike up to them rather than just admire them from afar. Not an easy walk, La Paz being over four thousand metres above sea level with every street being on an incline; it makes everything here very hard for walking and breathing. But consider this; poor old Bolivian women can do this and more every bloody day whether it be for working or for shopping in the central markets. It just makes me think how easy we must have it.

Not too exhausted, Daniel accepted an offer to come for a walk down to the bottom of Centro, past the university where all the beautiful girls of La Paz hang out, further down to the somewhat more upmarket European looking business sector. We walked past some Brazilian hippies who were busking at a traffic light by doing acrobatic tricks and then checking cars for donations. We talked to them for awhile before heading off to a park. While sitting in the little play area for the kids, an old French woman who we had both seen hanging around La Luna and at one of the other gringo joints Sol La Luna, randomly approached us, talked to me for about a minute then handed me a nice big bag of herb. She was very old, probably in her late 40’s and looked like she had partied a bit in her lifetime. As quickly as the French lady had appeared she was gone and we were left with the odd but nice present. Daniel seemed to think she was gunning for me a little, maybe that was the case, but I have a feeling somehow that there would never even be the remotest possibility in the outermost reaches of the imagination that anything could pass between myself and her.

We had a little smoke from our bounty a bit later on that evening while hanging out at the ‘other’ gringo joint, Sol La Luna. I had been there previously and spoken to the boss about doing some shifts there, they had just taken on a couple of new people but the boss, a woman from Norway I think (with a very pommy English accent) seemed nice enough. It was Salsa night, a small live band playing some tunes and inviting couples to have a go at dancing. There were three Bolivian guys who I am assuming had been invited and knew how to dance Salsa professionally, as they were there doing their thing with whichever girl wanted to have a go. I dunno why but there was something that made me cringe about the really cheesy way these guys smiled stupidly while dancing. I know from watching Ivan that the Colombians are very serious, maybe a little too serious facially speaking when they dance. The Argentineans looked kind of normal from what I remember and I can’t really associate the Andean indigenous culture with Salsa. These guys weren’t from that indigenous group in any case. The only real highlight of our evening was dancing with three very attractive Bolivianas but other than that it’s a pretty boring place.

We left to smoke a joint then returned to our respective dwellings; the asshole guy that runs my alojamiento was asleep and wouldn’t answer the door no matter how hard I banged on it. I was stoned and thinking FUCK THIS, as I have said many times, La Paz is cold. I almost had to sleep in the doorway when finally after an hour the old fool got up, groaning and complaining.

The guy possibly tried to ignore me because the previous night one the residents, probably one of the Chilean hippies, came back very late and very drunk making a lot of nice and being really abusive eventually smashing the window because he got refused entry. That maybe explains why I had to suffer outside but it doesn’t explain why this alojamiento is so shit. It doesn’t explain for example why the family of the owner are also assholes. His teenage sons that sometimes run the place are particularly unhelpful and rude, his little four year old or five year old daughter enters our room sometimes or bangs on the door until we let her in, I definitely get the feeling there is something not right about that little girl. In any case I don’t trust her with our stuff. But worst of all are the toilets; oh Jesus, the toilets here are absolutely fucking filthy, I can’t use them for anything other than urinating. I also have no desire to use the showers here as they’re not much better and just like everywhere else in this country, you have to pay. I have sometimes gone to restaurants specifically to use their toilet, anything as far as I’m concerned is better than here.

The room that I stay in is a complete and utter piece of shit; the mattress I don’t think has ever been changed or washed. The walls are covered in crap, it’s just a mess. The only good point is that in the afternoons when I am alone here I can sometimes be inspired by this room, the window and its excellent view of the city and the surrounding neighbourhood. The graffiti covered walls include one piece that says that Ivan was here. I have often wondered whether that was written by the Ivan that I know or just some other random traveler.

In spite of all the negatives, I can sit here in these late afternoons and let the creativity hit me, guide my hand to this writing pad and transfer my feelings and thoughts into long ramblings or more concise lyrics for songs that exist only in my head, or I can simply let myself wander to meditations on the strangeness of my current situation. Whatever I feel I can at least I can say that I am living, which is all I ever really wanted with this trip.