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Manchester to Rome 2022

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Bolivia III

June 26, 2020 by Simon Robinson Leave a Comment

The lake has gone. And with it, an oral culture that lasted thousands of years has evaporated too. Lake Poopó is no more. 3680 metres above sea level, 1000 sq km of water has become a story of evaporation, desiccation and devastation.

A lasting memory is the shimmering pink line at the furthest edges of my sight. The heat haze rising from the salar distorted the lines of flamingoes diligently feeding on crustaceans whose pigmented carotenoids tinted their feathers pink. An earthly aurora andinus is gone. So too is the oral culture of honking birds that pre-dated the arrival of the humans that silenced them.

Lago Poopó near Untavi 1994
[Read more…] about Bolivia III

Filed Under: Anchoritism, Fake Memoir Tagged With: altiplano, bolivia, ecology, photos, popular, travel

Bolivia II

June 10, 2020 by Simon Robinson Leave a Comment

I have a strong memory of leaving a pizza bar in the palindrome town of Oruro. The word Oruro sounds like aurora to me though I don’t think there’s any etymological link. Oruro is a mining town some 3700 m above sea level in the southern altiplano of Bolivia. Mining had been going on 400 years when I arrived and curiously, 9 of every 10 people were still of direct Aymara and Quechua descent. Think Inca when the Spanish arrived in The Andes but they were the Tiahuanaco for millennia before that. Which had a great benefit for me since Oruro is the hub of Bolivia’s folk traditions. The boisterous singing and dancing is particularly enjoyable with the local ‘brandy’ Singani and a beer that made for the most terrible hangover headaches.

Silver mine; devil and cigarette in the very dark entrance way.
[Read more…] about Bolivia II

Filed Under: Fake Memoir Tagged With: altiplano, bolivia, ecology, malcolm gladwell, travel

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