The Lowlands

Tearing myself away from the beautiful surroundings and relaxing pace of La Vispera in Samaipata took two weeks. It was a treat to get to know a place--and some of its residents--more than I do at my usual breakneck pace. I´ll miss my friends Eva, Rio, Pieter, and Marga--the self-declared baby boomer ¨dropouts¨.

Next stop was Santa Cruz de la Sierra, a bustling town with a distinctly different feel from the rest of Bolivia--its atmosphere has more in common with Central America than it does the Andean regions of Ecuador, Peru, and Bolivia. It is fascinating how much altitude affects attitude here--both that of the traveler and that of the residents. The culture is much warmer than in the highlands, where the locals are more isolated and tend to be distrustful of outsiders. Santa Cruz is the most affluent part of the country, and it prides itself on its cosmopolitan nature; there is a strong movement here to secede from the rest of Bolivia.

For the tourist, there´s not much to do but enjoy a pleasant central plaza, very walkable streets, and good international cuisine. If you´re looking for cheap flights into Bolivia, however, it´s often more affordable than La Paz--so many travelers end up passing through here on the way to somewhere else. I met up with a cool British guy named Jon, and we spent the day drinking non-instant coffee (hard to find in the rest of the country) and delicious market juices, and wolfing down tasty thin-crust pizzas on the plaza. I am noticing that a good bit of my trip is revolving around searching out the tastiest food! So far, nowhere can hold a candle to Peru in that regard.


Thanks to a connection I made in Samaipata, I had the opportunity to meet with Dr. Osvaldo Peredo, a man whose two brothers fought alongside Che Guevara. He himself trained in the Soviet Union and returned to Bolivia to help support the guerrilla efforts and to funnel information to Che´s troops about what was going on in the urban areas. Three years after Che´s assasination, Dr. Peredo launched a second guerrilla war in the Teoponte region of Bolivia, leading a group of over 70 men. Unlike in Che´s troops, all of the soldiers supervising various columns of the guerrilla army were of indiginous descent. He attributes his success in working with the native population to the legwork that Che had done in the region; his death brought social consciousness to many rural communities, who became more interested in evening out the great discrepancies between their own standard of living and that of the urban elite.

Unfortunately, Dr. Peredo´s rebellion was ultimately squelched by the Bolivian army, who were well-trained from having fought Che´s troops several years earlier. He left the country and returned in the 90s, when democracy finally made it to Bolivia. He now works as a doctor in Santa Cruz, and is head of the Che Guevara Foundation, which raises funds to support related museums and monuments around the country. Meeting him was one of the highlights of my trip to Bolivia; he was incredibly gracious and willing to answer my questions. What an amazing opportunity to sit down to a coversation with one of the great guerrilla fighters and socialist intellectuals of our time.


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