Che Guevara’s Pizza Diaries

En route from La Paz to El Alto you are likely to drive past a roadside statue of Ernesto Che Guevara, the Argentine revolutionary whose iconic face has come to adorn anything from T-shirts to protest banners across the globe. The metal statue is overpowering, as are the myths and urban legends that surround his figure in this country.

In Bolivia, el Che exists as a paradox. He is lauded by everyday people and by President Evo Morales himself, yet it is here where he fell. He is an emblem of the Bolivian army even though it was precisely this army that killed him. Che is exalted as a leftist figure of Marxist thought although the Communist Party of Bolivia turned its back on him in the 1960s.

Despite these paradoxes, there is no doubt he lives on in the collective local imagination through numerous tales and stories. But none of the myths that precede him are quite as quirky and mundane as the one that ties him to a local pizza shop. Legend has it that, during his 'Motorcycle diary tour' of South America, Ernesto Che Guevara worked at a restaurant in La Paz named Eli’s Pizzeria.

When Eli’s Pizzeria began, more than 70 years ago, it operated out of a single shop next to the cinema on El Prado. Today, like el Che, the pizzeria in La Paz has become a popular icon. What began as a local pizzeria, has now become a growing Bolivian food chain with restaurants and street stalls across the country.

The chain does very little to advertise its supposed link with Guevara. When you walk into any of their pizza shops, you would hardly imagine such a place could have been a part of his revolutionary odyssey. Compared to other restaurants in La Paz, the original Eli’s Pizzeria is vaguely reminiscent of an American diner. The walls are a modest tribute to the restaurant’s staff and former owners with no reference to Guevara at all.

Despite having changed its name multiple times, Eli’s has kept several members of its staff for the majority of its history. One such member was Don Max who, in life, ardently maintained not only that Che Guevara did work at the pizzeria at one point, but also that he stayed with him in his house for a brief period of time. Regrettably, Don Max is no longer around to verify these claims, although his story is at the heart of this urban legend.

The lack of evidence confirming El Che’s supposed employment at Eli’s Pizzeria may be enough to dispel Don Max’s tale, but rumors endure to this day surrounding el Che and his connection to the restaurant.

Doña Margarita, another employee at Eli’s, has been waiting tables at the shop for more than 60 years. She recalls the claims made by Don Max, but denies that Che ever worked at the restaurant. According to Doña Margarita, Don Max greatly embellished his recollections.

What Margarita remembers, though, is that el Che did indeed frequent the pizzeria during his brief time in La Paz, apparently accompanied by several exiled Argentinian Peronists. 'He always had a coffee and apple pie', Margarita recalls. Perhaps this was his choice of food over which to discuss the budding future of the revolution he was spearheading. However, this may well be the stuff of local legend. 

The restaurant staff apparently did not realise the significance of Guevara’s presence until years later, when a manhunt began throughout the whole of Bolivia in search of the revolutionary leader.

Such is the trail left by a controversial figure who would meet his end in La Higuera. The truth of his passage through La Paz may never be known, even if we take Doña Margarita’s word for all of this, but this hardly matters anymore. After all, legends live on in the minds of the those who believe in them.

The corral of llamas gazed haughtily at me. Their jaws chewed side-to-side, a short row of buckteeth jutting out to form an overall aura of aloof heartiness. I had come to this remote llama farm in the dry unforgiving plains of the Altiplano to learn about the history of llama meat consumption, and these llamas weren’t about to give this gringo any love. Maybe they could tell I was thinking about the delicious llama filet I had eaten the week before.

Luckily, two equally hardy but much less haughty women arrived, welcoming us with toothy smiles and wind-weathered wrinkly cheeks. After receiving our gift of a generously sized bag of coca leaves they explained that Bolivia’s history of llama husbandry and consumption stretches back to ancient indigenous Aymara and Quechua communities who took advantage of the animal’s adaptability to harsh high altitude conditions.

Raising llamas in their natural habitat meant that their daily, meandering, nibbling stroll through the countryside provided their breakfast, lunch and dinner. Today, llama farms still dot the landscape of the otherwise sparse Altiplano, although with decreasing frequency and size.

'Two or three families may use this llama corral', explains one of them. 'We grow them for our own use, although sometimes we sell some to city merchants if they come offering to buy and we need the money.'

While life in the Altiplano remains relatively unchanged for these small llama farms, the dynamics of the commercial llama meat industry have been changing over recent years. The fact that 'city people' would venture to the mountain plains for a llama purchase is a testament to this changing environment and also to the fledgling nature of an industry with limited commercial infrastructure.

The success of Mateo Laura’s business, Mayken —which is one of, if not the only, company in Bolivia that makes llama sausages— relies for better or for worse on this shaky infrastructure. Back in the busy bustle of La Paz, I met with Laura, a man of Aymara descent whose family has worked on llama farms for generations.

While raising llamas was a simple necessity of life in the plains of the Altiplano for centuries, for Laura’s present-day business, bringing the meat into commercial production has been a challenging process. 'We’ve had many difficulties trying to maintain our business. There is always a lack of capital, which makes important things like product distribution very difficult to manage.'

He continued, 'We need to get more marketing experts involved in order to spread knowledge of llama meat’s nutritional characteristics, and to generate more acceptance of its consumption'. Apparently, llama meat is low in fat and cholesterol, and high in protein — in light of these characteristics it is perhaps one of the healthiest available on the menu of world meats.

Most budding businesses experience growing pains, but why has it been so hard to succeed within a country that has been eating llama meat for centuries? The truth is that culinary llama adaptations available in restaurants, hotels and cafés don’t tempt the taste buds of most Bolivians. In our discussion about product distribution Laura made an interesting point, 'We distribute mostly to places like hotels, locations with many foreigners.'

So the majority of llama meat isn’t consumed by Bolivians. Instead, it is eagerly thrust down the gullet of gullible tourists like myself. Aside from its obvious exotic attraction as a meat not widely available elsewhere, it offers what foreigners like me believe is a window into la vida boliviana. After all, aren’t all Bolivians as excited about a llama carpaccio as I am? Apparently not.

One restaurant owner in La Paz tells me that the meat’s cultural role in society is perhaps the main reason for this local aversion to its consumption. He also tells me that’s exactly why he came to the city to make and sell traditional llama meat dishes.

On a busy street in Miraflores, the signs outside Edwin Mamani’s restaurant 'El Fogón' boast charquekan orureño for only 15 bolivianos. Dried and shredded, this is a traditional way to prepare and serve llama meat. Mamani explains his decision to open a restaurant here: 'I studied the market in this area and realized there is little to no charquekan, there was great economic incentive to open a restaurant'. Given the cultural history of the meat he was about to share with me, this was also a very risky business decision.

After he had piled the shredded meat onto a plate for me, I sat there in my fake alpaca wool sweater decorated with cheeky llamas and ate his truly authentic Bolivian dish, listening as he explained its history.

'Charquekan’s origins lie in mining communities. The miners took coca and food with them into the mines for long shifts and their wives prepared the llama meat – which is a tough meat and was very cheap – in this way so it would last a long time.' 

For this reason, like quinoa, llama meat’s historical reputation is one of a food for the poor, for country folk. Today, Mamani explains that, unlike quinoa, it is still the middle and lower classes that eat charquekan in Oruro, but that here in La Paz people from a broader range of socioeconomic levels are becoming acquainted with the dish and are becoming better educated about the nutritional qualities of llama meat.

On the llama farm in the Altiplano, I thought about the future of this industry. Llamas are incredibly durable creatures, but would consumption of their meat also endure on a commercial scale? Or, like the foreigners that flock to dine on llama dishes in the cities, is this a product that is simply out of place in such an environment?

The llamas offered no hints through their bucktoothed gyrations and steady stares. Mamani is more optimistic about what lies ahead, 'In the future, it will be a dish for everyone, all classes. Everyone will eat it.'

Ajenjo, the Bolivian Absinthe

As you walk into Café Etno on Calle Jaen you might be forgiven for thinking that you were no longer in La Paz, but had been transported to a bar in a trendy district of a European city. The cavernous ceilings and dim candle-light are only some of the things that make this a unique spot in Bolivia. The other —its call to fame— is that Café Etno has apparently become the only place in La Paz that serves Ajenjo: a Bolivian variety of absinthe.

Usually made from wormwood and served alight on a sugar cube, European absinthe is largely associated with artists and intellectuals such as Vincent Van Gogh and Charles Baudelaire. Ajenjo is different. It is served straight with a side-glass of drinking water and it is distilled from an eponymous plant, which can take up to 25 years to flower on the banks of Bolivian rivers.

'First, inhale. Then drink. Then exhale', instructs the waiter, as he places a tiny shot of luminescent green liquid down in front of me.

'After that take tiny sips of the water… Don’t take large gulps of the water. Otherwise, you might feel the urge to vomit', he warns.

I fear the quantity of water drunk won’t make a difference, as I summon the courage to ingest the synthetic-looking liquid. Minutes later, the back of my throat is still smarting from the Ajenjo as it blazes a trail towards my stomach.

vThe overpowering taste of aniseed which I distinctly associate with European absinthe is not present. Instead, what I can just about discern is a faint grassy flavour, which intensifies as an after-taste once the burning begins to subside.

According to the bar staff, the mythic reputation of absinthe acting as a hallucinogen is maintained by Ajenjo. Apparently the liquid has caused previous drinkers to see spirits and ghosts lurking around on the streets. This is hardly surprising when one considers that the street it’s on is reportedly haunted by the ghost of Pedro Domingo Murillo: a notorious figure in the struggle for Bolivia’s independence, whose house remains on the street to this day. 

Although General Murillo does not make an appearance that evening as I leave the bar, I am struck by the incredible feat that I have accomplished. In two drinks, I managed to consume 50 years worth of Ajenjo. In Europe, absinthe is known as la fée verte, the green fairy. But here, as I stare at the spectral green liquid inside my shot glass, it seems to me Ajenjo would be better named the green ghost, if only to reaffirm a curious local legend.