Beautiful Bolivia

Bicis

Much like an awkward teenager, the face of human history is covered in blemishes. Power struggles, economic collapse, and environmental destruction are common examples. Events and actions that we commemorate in order to prevent similar situations, but for the most part try to ignore. Partly out of shame, partly out of disgust, partly out of embarrassment.

So in going to Rosario, and being forced to think about a traumatic war every time I walked out the front door, years after it occurred, was bizarre. Perhaps this was the thought process behind Fernando Traverso's bicis...

Scattered throughout Rosario, are over 360 stenciled, spray painted bicycles. Each one a testimony to a student lost in Argentina's "dirty war". In 1976, a coup d'etat started that overturned the country, forcing members of the standing political party to flee and leaving a military dictatorship in its place.  Life in Argentina changed for everyone, and stopped completely for many. During the 7 years that the war lasted, 30 000 people went missing. Picked up off the street for "questioning" and never heard from again. Of those 30 000, no bodies were found, no records were kept or discovered. They were "lost" in every sense of the word.

The takeover ended in 1983, and Argentina settled into an uneasy and very different type of normal than what they had possessed before the coup, and with much lost. It wasn't until 1997 that bicycles begin appearing on the streets if Rosario- a city bordering the Parana river- they were stenciled and spray painted onto seemingly random walls everywhere, and they were a complete mystery. The bikes were all the same, with their tires resting where the wall met the sidewalk and with bold numbers written beside them. Their meaning was unknown and the artist anonymous. For years they appeared out of nowhere on back alley brick walls and train station platforms; it wasn't until 2001 that the artist, a man named Fernando Traverso -a hospital worker, artist, and political activist- stepped forward and explained his "bicis".

Each bicycle was a tribute to one of the over 300 students from Rosario who had disappeared between 1976 and 1983, and placed in the locations they were taken from or had last been seen. His inspiration: a friend of his who had been riding his bike when police stopped him in order to ask him some questions, he leaned his bicycle against a wall- and that's where it stayed.

In his mission to accerten that his friend and others like him were not forgotten, Traverso started a national movement. Today, the same spray painted bicycles can be found throughout Argentina, although the majority are in Rosario.

These bikes challenge our habit of avoiding our past, and their stark message is one that you are forced to revisit everyday while walking through Rosario. For me, their presence colored our entire visit, forcing us to take into account the country's past at every monument, and giving us insight into the lives of the many people we talked with who were old enough to have lived through it.  The respect I have for Traverso and his message, and the respect I have for the Argentine people is collosal. The idea of displaying such a clear symbol of negative history in such casual places is both poignant and touching, and one I believe should be adopted by many more places. It is an unavoidable message to not forget, to not take advantage, to never allow history to repeat itself.

I have seen

It has been almost three weeks since we arrived in South America, and it somehow feels as though we have just left Canada and also as if it has been months since I last saw it. Tons has happened - yet when compared to the 100 odd days we have left, our journey has hardly started. Despite this, I have seen so much..

I have seen Montevideo, where crumbling colonial style apartments attach themselves to shiny, glass walled hotels. Where long haired businesswomen in pantsuits and pumps walk down cobblestone streets; and old men wheel rickety, fruit laden carts to their produce stands and grocery shops. It is a city that seemed to move in bursts - a trait I would later learn it shared with most of the country - where activity seems to grind to a complete halt a few times a day only to recommence full speed an hour later.

I have seen Punta Del Diablo, a small surf town. There, I watched as surfers took to the beach twice a day when the surf was up, and as the streets seemed to empty almost entirely in between their visits. The town seemed half filled with hostels and hotels- many closed for winter - the rest of the streets were lined with an array of whitewashed, thatch roofed beach huts; cozy cabins; and small restaurants. It was slow in Punta Del Diablo, a place for long walks and lengthy conversations. It was a place where you could take a hike through the rain to a nearby national park (exactly what we did) and surround yourself with a jungle of smooth barked trees and low hanging branches.

I have seen Cabo Polonio, a sort of permanent folk fest - filled with colorfully painted hostels and shanty beach huts and all topped with solar panels and wind mills. Populated mostly by dread-locked, off the grid, down to earth hippies. It is a place I can only truly describe by being filled with sand and wind. To arrive means driving over sand dunes in a massive 4 wheeler. Staying means walking along sand packed roads, sleeping in mysteriously sand filled sheets, and getting used to finding it pooled in every pocket and shoe you own. It also means getting used to the constant blow of wind through your hair and the creak of the walls at night.

I have seen and climbed the rocky terrain of the Sierra Rocha mountains, where sweet trees fill the air with a sugared scent and everything grows green. It is a place where walking along the narrow paths leaves your legs and arms scratched by cacti and mistletoe bushes, and where the stars shine brighter than any I have ever seen. The ranch we stayed at was a place where our house was pieced together with sandbags and truck tires, where horses wandered a yard half filled with organic garden, and a dalmation named Devina roamed where she pleased.

I have seen Colonia de Sacramento, filled with quaint restaurants and art galleries, and with ice cream sent from heaven. It was a place where a sunset over the port was bright, and the view of the ocean uninterrupted save for the high towers of Buenos Aires in the distance.

I have seen the skyscrapers and theater fronts of Buenos Aires, where stony faced people walk in hundreds down the streets and traffic stops for no one. It is a city where overwhelming wealth lives next to overwhelming poverty, where businessmen eat in expensive restaurants as homeless men sit outside of them. It is bright lights and busy streets, with bundles of power cords the size of tree branches hanging overhead. Buenos Aires is a sensory overload of lights and colors, traffic horns and staticky radios, road side food stands and pastry shops, spray painted subway trains and bustling antique markets. It was a city with little rhythm or sense, but lots of everything else.

Now we are in Rosario, where the traffic stops for a few more people, and massive portraits decorate the sides of many buildings. It is a city built haphazardly, sprung up seemingly of its own accord of what was once a small trade port. It is filled with old buildings, converted into art galleries, theaters, schools, and even imagination centers for children. It is a place with little notariety, but seemingly lots to discover. I'm sure we will be busy, as the next week we will spend lots of time observing the walls of a Spanish language classroom and the rest of our hours on adventures of our own.

Language Barriers

It has been almost a week since we landed in Uruguay; and it has been a week filled with new foods, long walks, dangerous intersections, crowded bus rides, and above all- miscommunication.

I'm not sure what I expected to find upon landing in Uruguay, certainly not the crowded urban city that is Montevideo, home to half of the country's 3 million people. However what shocked me more than the pothole filled brick walkways or the street art covered walls, more even than the dangerously uncontrolled intersections: was the language. Why I started this trip with the expectation that it would be easy to find English speaking assistance wherever we went us a mystery even to me -perhaps it was a notion formed from how easy we found it to communicate on our last trip through Thailand. Whatever it was, it was ungrounded.

When we left Canada, my Spanish vocabulary consisted of Hola, gracias,chow and the numbers one through seven. Admittedly, almost all of this was taught to me by Dora the explorer. I also shamefully admit that my vocabulary has not expanded much since our arrival albeit being able to ask for a bathroom. Unfortunately, just about my entire family arrived with more or less the same grasp of the language as I did, which made ordering our first meal (and almost every meal since) a lengthy process filled with hand gestures and fumbling silences. The people of Uruguay, for the most part, seem to know about the same amount of our language as we do theirs, and so our interactions have a tendency to turn into awkward, and very public games of charades. All of this to say that I have never  valued the gift of communication so much.

Despite the added time it takes to get just about anything done - from asking for directions to reserving a hostel- we are learning. My dad goes everywhere with his lonely planet Latin America translation guide, and I have become better at being able to decipher what written spanish means (something greatly helped by already being able to speak French). For the most part we are able to get by, or worst case scenario, just go with whatever the outcome may be. Whether that means staying an extra day in a small beach side fishing village when you miss the only bus out (one of today's mishaps); or eating lots of cheese and crackers when you mom accidentally orders 384 pesos worth of cheese (another one of today's events).. That is the beauty of being on a trip as long as ours, we have time to learn and can afford to make mistakes.  Some of these mistakes even turn out to be good things- they mean meeting a friendly local who spends a half hour trying to help you find your hostel, or getting to see a wing of a typography museum that's technically closed, or learning about lots of different ways you can cook with cheese.

Tomorrow we will try once again to catch a bus to a small village further down the coast, and then we'll be off to a family owned vegetarian horse ranch. Fingers crossed both places have people good at playing charades. Either way, it's all part of the adventure.