Chapter Eleven
Iguazu Falls to Potosi, Bolivia
After visiting the worlds largest hydro-electric dam at Itaipu I drove to Asuncion, the capital of Paraguay. I visited VW Paraguay and once again the relevant people with whom I negotiated were most obliging. They replaced my steering box with a new one and serviced the engine. In Asuncion an old wood-burning steam train travels along the oldest railway in South America and continues to run a regular service. I took this train of antiquity to Yparcarai and rolled along in the carriage as it swayed jauntily along the old worn rails, carriages with well-preserved wooden seats carrying schoolchildren home from school and peasants to and from their places of work. The fare was 100 guaranis, 10 cents!
I crossed the rest of Paraguay uneventfully, passing haciendas and peasants travelling to and fro in worn carts, pulled by horses and oxen. We watched each other with mutual admiration! These people do not suffer the stresses of modern civilisation; hectic living and modern technology do not rule their lives! After a visit to the old ruins of the Jesuit missionaries, I arrived at Encarnacion, the border town linking up with Argentina. Another wide river, the Parana, separated me from this country and another interesting ferry ride was required to cross over to Posada. A blast from a steam whistle nearby drew my head attentitively towards the little port, where a steam-driven paddle-wheeler transporting railway goods carriages from one side of the river to the other, was entering the antiquated wooden dockyard. A new bridge has just been built to facilitate the crossing of this river, thereby making obsolete another spectacle of a technology no longer useful to a modernising society.
While traversing the Gran Chaco of northern Argentina, an
immense region of grass and scrubland, I watched guachos displaying their
horse-riding skills, as they herded in the cattle for transport to market.
Finally arriving at Salta I felt that I had arrived at the Andes Mountains. From here it was a gradual, but seemingly never ending, slope upwards. The road past Salta eventually became a dirt road with dust as my enemy for many weeks while I was crossing these scenically magnificent mountains. Every day I had to find a stream to wash the dust off and each night the inside of the van had to be cleaned before sleep was possible.
By this time I had virtually gone directly west of Rio de
Janeiro to the western side of the continent. There were two reasons why I had
decided to turn north instead of travelling south. As the rain falls in this
part of the continent during the summer months which, in this case, are
December, January and February, I preferred travelling on dusty roads,.jpg)
rather
than fight the horrendously muddy roads that I had already experienced earlier
in the Brazilian rainforests. In addition, the best time to arrive at Tierra del
Fuego is in the summer months, when it is warmer and when there is more light. I
needed, therefore, to spend six months in the middle of the continent.
Travelling north, I eventually arrived at the border of Argentina with Bolivia, a land-locked country which is home to many indigenous Indian peoples still living traditional life styles, similar in many ways to how they had lived five hundred years before under Inca rule. Of course there had been Spanish occupation and colonialisation, and most have learnt some of the Spanish language, but due to their isolation in these high mountains they were to receive less European influence here.
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There were three locations in this mountain range that I
especially did not want to miss. They were Machu Picchu, Lake Titicaca and
Potosi. After having crossed many laborious ridges of the Andes Mountains,
driving along dusty winding roads at up to four thousand metres where around
every corner I was confronted with a different spectacular view, I arrived at
Potosi, situated halfway up a mountain called Cerro Rico (Rich mountain). This
mountain is perhaps the most worked mountain on the face of the earth. No stone
on its high slopes has been left unturned. Dozens of narrow tunnels have been
worked deep into the mountain where thousands of local indigenous Indians were
worked to death mining the ore in atrocious conditions.Today Indians are paid a
meagre wage and there is not the cruelty of previous centuries but the
conditions remain harsh.
I spent a few days in Potosi, wandering along the cobble-stone streets and visiting one of the old mines where inside I saw a young thirteen year old boy embarking on his new 'career', mining silver. He was no longer a slave but his working conditions are not much better! This boy was deep inside a tunnel where his companion, an old man at forty five, gave a toothless smile. Fortunately for them, they probably don't know any better! I did!! Before the workers go in each morning, they are seen chewing on cocoa leaves (the leaf from which cocaine is derived) and masticating them into a cow like cud to receive a 'high' that it is apparently supposed to give them. I tried it myself but found very little response. I didn't chew on a huge wad of it for hours like they did either. I also tried it in my tea with little effect. It was supposed to have helped with altitude sickness. At night back in Potosi, with the evening temperature hovering well below zero degrees centigrade, I wandered around the dimly lit streets. Located at an altitude of 4,000 metres, the lack of energy was most noticeable. I strolled along slowly and admired the architecture of the Spanish colonial period, passing a local cantina and stopping to eat some traditional food, while at the same time listening to some melodious local music of the Andes which uses the flauta (bamboo pipes cut to different lengths) and many various percussion instruments to create a unique and pleasantly harmonious sound.