When asked about what unifies them as a nation, Bolivians agree on three things: a yearning for access to the sea, a love of dancing and celebrations (during which beer becomes the main source of hydration) and the national football team. In a country with so many different cultures, climates and traditions – and in which there is an acute political divide – it can be difficult to find common ground. Bolivia is geographically, politically and socially stratified, but it has a strong sense of identity and national pride, which is not always easy to define.
The Sea
Each year, on 23 March, Bolivia’s claim to access to the Pacific coast resurfaces during the Day of the Sea. This anniversary commemorates the Battle of Calama in 1879, the first battle in the War of the Pacific, when Eduardo Avaroa was shot dead by the Chileans after refusing to surrender (he famously said, ‘Me, surrender? Tell your grandmother to surrender!’).
Ever since then, Bolivia has claimed sovereignty over its lost Litoral department on the Pacific coast which Chile claimed at the conclusion of the war. On 1 October 2018, after five years of deliberation, the International Court of Justice in The Hague ruled in favour of Chile. The court said, in a final and binding ruling, that Chile was not obliged to negotiate with Bolivia over granting access to the territory. Bolivian President Evo Morales reacted, saying, ‘Bolivia will never give up’, a sentiment undoubtedly shared by the rest of the country.
The sea belongs to Bolivia’s collective imagination; its loss is something that is taught to and deeply ingrained in all schoolchildren as an inalienable and sovereign right. Taking back the 120,000 square kilometres lost during the war may seem improbable, if not foolish, to the outside observer, but it is nonetheless something that connects and unifies a nation in a very real way. (And if, as a foreigner, you don’t believe me, try to joke around Bolivians about the sea and… just try.)
Carnaval (Parties)
For some, the celebrations in Oruro, the large mining city perched high on the altiplano, during Carnaval are debauched and depraved, an overindulgence best avoided, but for most Bolivians they are the ultimate festival, the one time of the year when most everyone comes together in a hectic explosion of colours and excess. Carnaval is celebrated all around the country from Saturday to Tuesday in a four-day bender taken so seriously that Monday and Tuesday are national holidays (as they are in Brazil). But alcohol isn’t the only thing that unifies Bolivians, as Carnaval embraces all the cultures of Bolivia. During the celebrations in Oruro, we are all equals, and equally susceptible to be attacked by savage children with foamy water. In the abandonment that’s typical during this riotous holiday, all Bolivians – rich and poor, young and old – forget their differences and celebrate just being Bolivian.
Football
People here support and defend their teams with a fierce and raw passion, and do it even more fiercely and passionately when it comes to their national team – especially when playing against Chile. One of Bolivia’s proudest achievements – and this is my very personal and biased opinion – was during the 1994 World Cup qualification, which was also one of the most unfortunate sporting displays of the past century.
*Beginning of flashback*
It’s 1994, people are listening to Nirvana, Boyz II Men and Mariah Carey on Walkmans, and the mullet is unfortunately an acceptable hairstyle. The United States is hosting the World Cup and, for the first time in its history, Bolivia qualifies! A whole nation anxiously watches the group draw to find out, to their horror, that Bolivia will have to play against Spain and the reigning world champion, Germany, two ridiculously difficult teams to beat, along with South Korea, a fairly good team. But Bolivia has a strong team with star player Marco Etcheverry and they feel confident. School (and work) is de facto cancelled and the whole country stops to watch Bolivia’s first World Cup match against Germany. The game starts well and La Verde is only losing 1-0. But Etcheverry is – wrongly – sent off at the 82’ minute. The final score is still 1-0, but now Bolivia has to face South Korea without its main man, massively affecting the team’s confidence. They draw 0-0 against South Korea, which they could probably have beaten, and they lose 3-1 against Spain. This marks the end of Bolivia’s World Cup adventure, and of our flashback.
*End of flashback*
Bolivia is now looking to be part of a combined Argentina/Uruguay/Paraguay bid for the 2030 World Cup. One can only hope.
History, and the present, have shown us on numerous occasions that fear and hate can unify people. This becomes especially visible in times of uncertainty or, for instance, in the year leading to a presidential election. People vote against someone instead of voting for a candidate whose ideas they agree with. The challenge today for Bolivians is to be unified and work together; as humans, and Bolivians, we might not always like each other or agree on everything, but we all share a history and a desire to be better.
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ACTIVITIES/NATURE
Valle de las Ánimas
Description: A mere one-hour bus journey from the city just east of La Paz’s Zona Sur, the spires of el Valle de las Ánimas hang over a carved-up valley, resonating with a mystical quality up to 3900 masl. This majestic geological landscape is often overlooked by visitors to this sprawling city without knowing that the beautiful ‘Valley of the Souls’ is actually one of La Paz's city protected areas areas.
How to get there: One of the alternatives is to take a minibus that goes to UNI and get off at the bridge, then you have to walk along the river path about 45 minutes. It is recommended to contact a tour guide.
Photo: Renata Lazcano
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CULTURAL
MUSEF - Museo Nacional de Etnografía y Folklore
Description: A collection of more than 30,000 cultural artefacts lays within an architectural structure built in 1730 with a typical colonial style. The ‘National Museum of Ethnography and Folklore’ is one of the most prestigious and popular museums in Bolivia, their mission is “to value local archaeological, historical and anthropological memories and heritages of different nations and peoples of the Plurinational State of Bolivia, fostering intercultural and intracultural encounter and dialogue”. Vibrant colours, masks, craftsmanship, bolivian numismatist, feathers, pottery and other traditional vestments is something you can appreciate at the MUSEF.
Address: Ingavi street #916, La Paz
Website: www.musef.org.bo
Opening hours: 9:00 to 12:30 and 15:00 to 19:00
Photo: MUSEF
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FOOD
Café Vida
Description: Vegan food restaurant with Bolivian supplies. Natural, fresh and organic. Veggie bowls, main courses, smoothies, desserts, vegan cakes, and we have gluten-free options!! Clean, healthy and delicious! If you are willing to spend a moment calmly and rest...this is a good place! We will wait for you!
Address: Sagárnaga street #213, between Murillo and Linares street
Opening hours: 11:00 to 19:00
Photo: Café Vida
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BARS
ETNO Café Cultural
Description: Art and contemporary culture since 2005, a unique and cozy atmosphere in the most beautiful colonial street of La Paz Etno is the first absinthe bar in the city that also offers great food and other drinks.
Address: Jaén street #722
Contact: + 591 76231841
Opening hours: 11:30 to 2:00
Photo: ETNO
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PLACES TO VISIT
Mercado de las Brujas
Description: The Witches Market is one of the markets with more tradition, is located in the old town of La Paz, near the San Francisco Church. This unique market beyond the name is a place where natural medicine is sold, especially herbs, mates and other infusions among other local souvenirs. A colorful place full of tradition.
Address: Linares and Santa Cruz street
Photo: Renata Lazcano
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WHERE TO DO SHOPPING
Mistura
Description: One of Bolivia's first concept stores, it is a beautifully decorated boutique, dedicated to showcasing Bolivia's essence and original design that focuses on fashion, art, books, gourmet food and household items. All proudly made in Bolivia.
Address: Sagárnaga street #163
Website: www.misturabolivia.com
Opening hours: 9:30 to 20:00
Photo: Mistura
Photo: Janana Lourencato
Elvira Espejo Ayca’s multidisciplinary approach to life
Aymara artist, weaver, narrator of oral tradition, documentarian, poet, singer, writer and curator of La Paz’s National Museum of Ethnography and Folklore (MUSEF), Elvira Espejo Ayca is breaking boundaries in a once male-dominated country. She is paving new ways of reuniting rich indigenous traditions with contemporary Bolivia. Born in a rural altiplano community near Oruro, Espejo is a speaker of both Aymara and Quechua, in addition to Spanish, and her career has spanned the worlds of art, poetry, academia and music. It is a Thursday morning when I speak with her, and she sits before me in her office, calm and smiling warmly, with a purple scarf hanging over her shoulder.
Espejo begins by contextualising the inspiration behind her multifaceted career. ‘I thought of myself as an artist, and wanted to study arts because I have always been attracted to paintings,’ she says. ‘But then I found poetry when I heard a Japanese poet speak about haikus and the structure of their verses. I was really surprised by how similar it was to the things we did.’ Since that moment Espejo has been writing poetry about her community and her religion in Aymara and Quechua.
Espejo says her work is inspired by the contrasting experiences of rural and urban life. When she was 14 years old, she left her home village of Ayllu Qaqachaka to finish her high-school studies in the town of Challapata. She then studied in La Paz at the Academy of Fine Arts. Returning to Ayllu Qaqachaka to do research for her book, she spurned the big-city lifestyle she had come to know – for the time being at least. ‘In those days, Bolivia had difficulties surrounding promoting its culture,’ Espejo says. ‘So I decided to return to my town, and people were very surprised because they had never seen a fighting woman. They thought they lost me when I went to the city, but I came back.’ The immense contradictions between the city and the countryside have been an underlying theme in her art and research, an exploration of what it means to be Bolivian today. As a researcher of Bolivian art, Espejo tries to deepen the connection between tradition and the modern world, as a way of linking cultural history to the future. As an Aymara woman, Espejo’s work is also a part of the process of decolonisation in Bolivia, moving further towards a plurinacional country not just politically but culturally and socially.
Espejo tries to deepen the connection between tradition and the modern world, as a way of linking cultural history to the future.
In 2013, Espejo was appointed director of MUSEF, and since then she’s worked to reshape the way in which museums are curated, bringing ethnography, archaeology and ‘dead’ objects to life – such as those found in dusty corners of cupboards – as an integral part of how we can understand culture today. Espejo has focused on the weaving techniques found in rural communities, and the intimate and active relationships of the weavers to the fabrics displayed in the museum. ‘The museum used to ignore all of these factors and important parts [of small woven articles]; it only showed the big textiles, like ponchos and aguayos,’ rather than bringing attention to weaving techniques),’ she explains.
Espejo has published a book, El textil tridimensional: la naturaleza del tejido como objeto y como sujeto (The Three-Dimensional Textile: The Nature of the Fabric as an Object and as a subject), which catalogues the textile collection in the museum. In it, along with her co-author, anthropologist Denise Arnold, Espejo encourages us to think about objects, and textiles specifically, as more than static and one-dimensional, but as animate and enlivened. Rather than taking textile pieces at face value, Espejo and Arnold call on us to look more closely at them as products of a complex scientific and technological process that can provide extensive information about the cultures from which they originate.
Espejo’s studies in textiles is particularly relevant in the context of tourists shopping for cheap and colourful Bolivian fabrics to take home from their travels. Espejo explains that these textiles are mostly industrially produced, often imported from factories abroad. ‘In this industrial way, we are losing a dynamic, and the people of Bolivia won’t be able to reflect or think about the process of textiles.’ Something precious is lost if there are more demands for replicas than the legitimate versions of intricate textiles made by local Bolivian weavers.
In addition to her academic work, Espejo has branched out to the musical world, recently teaming up with musician Alvaro Montenegro. The duo has created a jazz-fusion piece called ‘Sonares Comunes’, which combines traditional Andean rhythms with contemporary urban sounds. This project reinforces Espejo’s efforts to collect knowledge and tradition in ways that counter the colonial written word. By fusing jazz with the rhythms of local communities, she strives to keep an oral history alive.
‘Art is everything and everywhere.’
—Elvira Espejo Ayca
Espejo is influencing the way in which art in all its forms acts as a gatekeeper between Bolivia’s diversity of tradition and the contemporary world. ‘Art is everything and everywhere,’ she says. ‘I see art like science, through the technology of the performers. It does not just need to be hung up in an exceptional gallery. I think art goes beyond, it depends on what you see. I think as a plurinacional state it would be nice to enlarge the fields of these societies and communities to have more understanding about this complex form of art of the past that we call archaeological objects.’
Photo: Renata Lazcano
You've got to learn to play
It's been described as ‘the communication between the human world and nature,’ as a vital expression of Andean culture and, more prosaically, as a monophonic wind instrument composed of differently sized tubes of wood or bone that are blown to create a pitch. It is the morning hymn of the mountains, the song of the breeze: the zampoña.
A chance encounter in the Witches’ Market; a transcendental musical experience in a taxi; losing all my books and needing something else to fill my time – these are all factors that have led me to blow (pun very much intended) a sizeable proportion of my weekly budget on the wooden instrument strung around my neck.
I blow. The sound that comes out is only slightly more tuneful than the sound of a heavy door swinging shut by a breeze/ghosts or – at a push – an exhausted marathon runner panting. Lot of air coming out, not a lot of tunefulness.
The sound that comes out is only slightly more tuneful than the sound of a heavy door swinging shut.
I stick on a Bolivian folk playlist for inspiration, letting the gentle sound wash over me like the patter of cool rain on the ground outside. I wake up, 30 minutes later, feeling refreshed but none the wiser about the instrument. I try again, attempting to play a few simple tunes: a slightly breathy version of Darude’s ‘Sandstorm’, a basically inaccurate cover of Pitbull’s ‘On the Floor’, an honestly haunting take on Joy Division’s ‘Love Will Tear Us Apart.’ Progress – Ian Curtis would have been proud. My brief sense of elation is thwarted by my roommate, who describes the ambient listening as ‘stressful’ and draws up a provisional timetable of limited zampoña-playing hours. Philistine. I give up for the day in a huff. Oh, zampoña, will I ever unlock your secrets?
Day two: no progress. Can't help but notice that since I've embarked on my zampoddyssey there have been more cats lurking around the house. Am I the Pied Pan-Piper of La Paz? Or do they think my playing is the sound of one of their brothers calling out in pain? Either way, I appreciate the more appreciative audience than the tone-deaf humans that can't hear art if it slaps them in the face with sweet Andean melodies.
I do a bit of research, hoping that learning about the history of the instrument will stir up some musical passions within me. The zampoña is an instrument that is most associated with performances outdoors; it lends itself to sweet, simple melodies that flutter about playfully like a bird in the breeze. It is an instrument whose history is tied up with that of the Inca Empire, and was traditionally played around the Inca heartlands of Lake Titicaca. The instrument has a quiet, gentle sound that sets it apart from other Bolivian folk music – leaning towards the contemplative instead of the brash – and is often employed in rural ceremonies, particularly relating to patron saints of towns, but is also occasionally played by bands of seven players called zamponistas. This is all very well, if I can learn how to play the damned thing.
I need a change of scenery. The house is becoming a prison, choking my creativity and drowning out the sound. Also, the cats are getting a bit annoying and I don't know if my travel insurance covers fleas. I need to take my zampoña into the natural world. After all, what is the zampoña if not the sound of nature? The sound of women walking down the mountainside blowing sweet melodies through the wind? I sling the instrument round my neck and head on the next bus for the Valle de las Ánimas.
On arrival, we give Pachamama an offering of coca leaves and alcohol and shout out our thanks. Quietly, I ask the earth mother to provide musical inspiration amidst the towering crevices. The hike up to the top of the mountain is staggeringly beautiful – an intricate gulley of uneasy-looking rocks eventually gives way to a meadow with a breathtaking panorama. The spectacle, and the fatigue from the walking, has taken my breath away – and it is several minutes before I have enough air in my lungs to play my instrument. But play I do. After a tentative effort at the classics, coupled with a setting-appropriate take on the Lord of the Rings soundtrack, I finally find my voice. These mountains remind me in some way of my childhood, walking around the Lake District in the North of England, adding stones to the waypoints and gazing at the birds. The waypoints are sparser here, the air thinner and the birds certainly more majestic, but the inner feeling is the same. Pachamama has inspired me, after some time away from home, to think about my my roots. We are standing at a crossroads between the earth and the sky, between the sacred and the profane, but also between cultures, and it is at this intersection that inspiration arises. I draw the wooden instrument to my lips, and out comes a pitch-perfect medley of the spiritual songs of England: ‘Three Lions’, ‘God Save the Queen’, ‘Vindaloo’. A bird calls out in what can only be appreciation before flying off into the sky. For a second I feel I have conquered the zampoña, but then I correct this arrogant line of thinking: the zampoña has conquered me.
If for some reason you want to herd a lot of cats, you should hire a zamponista.
I return to where I’m staying in Sopocachi and put the zampoña down, never to pick it up again. My exploration of Bolivian culture is done. I have reached my musical apex, and know I will never reach those literal and figurative heights again. I leave the zampoña at the house, for the next generation to take up the mantle, but also because I’m leaving soon and can’t fit it in my bag. So what have we learned? There is no greater source of inspiration than the divine majesty of mother nature. Also, if for some reason you want to herd a lot of cats, you should hire a zamponista.
