ISSUE #100 - SPECIAL EDITION
The Bolivian Express celebrates its 100th issue and tenth year this month. Over 300 interns have come to Bolivia to be part of the BX experience and left, we hope, with a better understanding of Bolivia and its culture. Some, actually, never left. We wrote about, among other things, chickens (Bolivians really like chicken), ice-cream vendors, chullpas (pre-Columbian tombs) and fat-sucking vampires roaming the altiplano (yes, that’s a thing); we tried to explain local trends (there are so many vegan restaurants now!) and current events (where to begin?) as clearly as possible. There are some questions we were never able to answer, though. Is it spelled Abaroa or Avaroa? Where do taxis disappear when it rains?
This couldn’t have been possible without the participation of the many interns who wrote for the magazine and gave it life. They’ve come from the United Kingdom, the United States, Australia, Belgium, France, Ireland, Indonesia, Italy, Germany and South Africa, bringing some of their culture to Bolivia and taking back with them a taste for salteñas (because salteñas are, very objectively, the best). There was romance, a cat called Kandinsky, dog bites, roadblocks, a kitchen fire, a very long bus journey to Vallegrande, a few ghosts and an inexhaustible number of stories that never made it to the magazine’s pages but are nevertheless a part of the BX experience.
Ultimately the BX was and is a human adventure. We wanted to tell stories about Bolivia but we ended up doing something better. Over the years we built a network of interns and contributors which now spreads all across the world, hopefully bringing some attention to Bolivia and all its wonderfully weird idiosyncrasies. This project started as a group of friends with an idea and it became a family with a home in Bolivia. In these uncertain times, there are few things we can be sure of, but regardless of what the future brings, the friendships and connections that have formed inside the BX house will remain, and we hope there will be many more to come with many more new stories to share. (And maybe, one day, we will tell you what happened on that trip to Vallegrande.)
To all the people who came to Bolivia to be a part of the Bolivian Express, to the photographers and illustrators, to the people who were interviewed and featured in the magazine, to our past and present team and to all our readers: thank you.
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Eduardo Avaroa Andean Fauna National Reserve. Potosí, Bolivia.
VALERIA DORADO
Explorer during the weekends and full time manager during the week. Valeria Dorado is passionate about travel and photography. In 2017, she started her blog ‘LaLibelle’, to document her travels and to show Bolivia through her eyes. Born in La Paz, Valeria wants to inspire Bolivians to leave their comfort zone, explore and learn more about their own country.
Instagram: @lalibelle
Awqani caves. La Paz, Bolivia.
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JUAN PABLO CRESPO ROCHA
Dr. Juan Pablo Crespo Rocha is an avant − garde medical doctor, who obtained his degree from UNICEM, UMSS and SOBOMETRA. He is a nature lover, passionate about photography and traveling. His love for the worldview of the andean peoples, made him to collaborate in a law to regularise the exercise and practice of traditional Bolivian ancestral medicine. He currently lives in Cochabamba.
Instagram: @jpgringorocha
Municipality of Vacas, road to an Inca cemetery. Cochabamba, Bolivia.
Link of the biological corridor Amboró-Madidi. Cochabamba, Bolivia.
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RODRIGO CONDORI
Rodrigo Condori, 20 years old, born and raised in Cochabamba, Bolivia.
Rodrigo started being interested in photography when he was 17, after attending a documentary photography workshop. This led him to appreciate the culture and beauty around him and to want to capture everyday moments while exploring urban and rural landscapes.
Instagram: @rodrigocondori_
La Paz, Bolivia.
Cochabamba, Bolivia.
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PETER RIOS
Peter Rios is a Bolivian photographer and audiovisual producer based in La Paz. Passionate about visits and production trips to the countryside in all regions of Bolivia in search of the reunion and union with the roots of this multi-diverse land full of culture and history.
Instagram: @peter_rios_photo
Fuerte de Samaipata. The rock was an ancient pre-Columbian ceremonial site and has symbols engraved all over its surface. Santa Cruz Department, Bolivia.
San Ignacio de Velasco church. Chiquitanía. Santa Cruz, Bolivia.
Details from the San Ignacio de Velasco Church, Chiquitanía, Santa Cruz, Bolivia.
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JOSE LUIS SIFUENTES
Jose Luis Sifuentes, 30 years old, born in Santa Cruz de la Sierra. He enjoys travelling and is an amateur photographer when he can take some time off from his commercial engineer career.
Instagram: @jlsifuentes
Cathedral of Santa Cruz. Santa Cruz, Bolivia.
Río Piraí, the iconic river and a popular spot for cruceños. Santa Cruz, Bolivia.
Photo: Valeria Dorado − BX Collaborator
Flamingo.Coqueza, Potosí, Bolivia.
Explorer during the weekends and full time manager during the week. Valeria Dorado is passionate about travel and photography. In 2017, she started her blog ‘LaLibelle’, to document her travels and to show Bolivia through her eyes. Born in La Paz, Valeria wants to inspire Bolivians to leave their comfort zone, explore and learn more about their own country.
Photos: Gonzalo Cárdenas
‘I am Rich Potosí
Treasury of the world
King of the mountains
And envy of Kings.’
Motto from Potosí’s coat of arms, granted by Emperor Charles V
That is how Kris Lane begins his book, Potosí: The Silver City That Changed The World.
According to old tax records, Potosí was the epicentre of silver mining between 1545 and 1810, with nearly half of the world’s silver originating from Cerro Rico in the first one hundred years of it being extracted there. The Spanish believed that there was so much silver to be found at Potosí that they could build a silver bridge from there to Spain. Miguel de Cervantes also immortalised the city in one of his most notable works, Don Quixote de la Mancha, coining the expression ‘Vale un Potosí’, meaning that something is worth a fortune.
There are various perspectives from which to tell the story of Potosí, from looking at the bare facts to critically analysing the events that took place there. In his book, Lane manages to combine those different points of view to unravel the history of the Villa Imperial. He delves into the daily lives of Potosí’s inhabitants and uncovers the relationship between the city, its mines and the rest of Bolivia, as well as its wider impact on the world. Lane’s book takes us on a detailed and fluid journey from an era of bonanza and boon through to its subsequent decline. Potosí was one of the richest and largest cities in the world at the time, but its opulence would inevitably lead it to overindulgence and ultimate ruin.
Having grown up listening to his grandfather’s stories of working the mines of Colorado in western United States, Lane immediately felt at home in Potosí when he first visited in 1995. He unveiled his book on 24 July in Sucre, Bolivia, at the tenth International Congress of the Bolivian Studies Association.
What Potosí represents for Bolivians is complicated: a city trapped in its history; a city that was once rich but is now poor. There is much more to Potosí than its mine tours, which can sometimes be exploitative of people’s sufferings. Potosí has much to offer in terms of touristic and cultural sites. ‘We have all been touched by its silver and thus we are all implicated in its tragedies and triumphs. If potosinos can help visitors see how much Potosí’s reality is simply a reflection of their own realities – as a result of early globalisation – then something has been accomplished,’ explains Lane.
This book’s contribution is therefore crucial to understanding this analytical and objective perspective. Potosí: The Silver City That Changed The World does not intend to change what the mining industry represents for the city but offers readers the opportunity to judge for themselves. ‘My main contribution, I think, is to emphasise the enormous significance of Potosí in world history as a producer of silver but also to show how the Villa Imperial was a great consumer of global products and a magnet for global migration’, said Lane.
Bringing together all of those elements was not easy, but Lane does an excellent job of depicting a clear and compelling story. The silver mountain and the city of Potosí still have much to tell.
