Blogging from Bolivia

The blog is going to take a new direction for the next six weeks or so, and post from our fieldwork in Bolivia. With me in the field this season is an excellent crew, and I hope that as a group we will be able to post at least a few times per week, with contributions in both Spanish and English. I'll ask each of our guest bloggers to introduce themselves as they post, but I can tell you that we have two students from the University of Central Florida, Rachael Kangas and Alex Rivas, and two students from the Universidad Mayor de San Andres, Mabel Ramos and Mary Luz Choque. The photo above is from the Hotel El Dorado in La Paz, looking up through the city towards the altiplano and El Alto.

Learning about dams on the Madeira

I confess that I am not very well informed about the construction of dams along the Madeira River, so I thought that it would be good to bring together some sources that relate to these issue. Here is an open access article from PLOS one that collates information about many dams in what the authors call Andean Amazonia, in order to assess the biological and ecological changes that will be brought about by dam construction at these two sites. The Santo Antonio and Jirau dams on the Madeira, just down stream of the Bolivian border in Brazil, were dubbed "critic proof" by the Wall Street Journal (sorry, that article is behind a paywall), but I have not read in journalism or academic literature about these their impacts. Survival International also has more information about the effects of dam construction on local indigenous people. Since the Madeira drains all of the Llanos de Mojos, these constructions presumably could change all of the seasonal patterns of drainage and flooding.

Bolivia is friendly to tourists

Clare Sammels at the Gringo Tambo blog makes some excellent points about a recent story on CNN about international tourism and attitudes towards tourists. Although the piece claims to evaluate how friendly individual countries are towards tourists, the size of the group that was surveyed seems small (79 people) and not directly related to the question of what do Bolivians think of tourists, or what do tourists think of Bolivians. This is worth paying attention to, because Bolivia gets so little press attention in the United States that this story could represent everything that many readers will hear about Bolivia. I have never found myself unwelcome as a tourist in Bolivia, and as the years have gone by, I have found that Bolivians have in fact been just as friendly as people in the United States, where I live. Clare is looking into the methodology, (that's three posts by her so far) so stay tuned. I am working on an article about poverty, tourism and archaeology in Bolivia, so I would be interested to hear what you have to say.

Quinoa in Bolivia

Realizing that I am quite late to the discussion, I wanted to highlight a recent post (which inclues many more published stories) about quinoa production in Bolivia and Peru, and quinoa consumption in the US and Europe. Quinoa is a delicious and nutritious crop, and appeals to vegetarians (for example) because it provides a large amount of diverse proteins. It's a good thing to eat if you are not eating meat. Clare Sammels brings together several of the recent articles, and points out that what people think about quinoa and the Bolivians who grow it doesn't have a lot to do with quinoa or Bolivians, but does have a lot to do with how people in the US and Europe think about those subjects. Also, if we want to know more about what Bolivian farmers think about quinoa, the best way to find out would be to ask them.

Traduciendo a castellano...

Espero que este "post" va a explicar por que no estoy escribiendo en español. Aun que he apredido todo mi español viviendo en el oriente de Bolivia, mi abilidad escribir facilmente y rapidamente no esta muy desarollado. Por esta razón, estoy escribiendo en inglés. Pero, hay una cosita (o cosinga, como pueden decir en Santa Ana) que puede ser útil; al lado derecho de esta ventana, hay un botón diciendo "translate" o "traducir." Ojala si viene alguien quien no quiere leer Amazon Walker en ingles, por lo menos pueden obtener una traducción con este servicio. De lo que he visto, parece que funciona mas o menos bien. Pero que piensas? Gracias por venir.

About the photograph

The photograph at the top of the page was taken on June 30, 2008, at 4:12 in the afternoon, while crossing the Quinato swamp, near Santa Ana del Yacuma, Bolivia. After a day of motorcycle travel and conversation with the residents of Miraflores, a small community on the edge of the wetland, my colleague Jaime Bocchietti and I headed back to where our motorcycle was parked. We still had at least a one hour ride to get back to town after getting back on the motorcycle, so I certainly had one eye on my watch to make sure that we would arrive before dark. The swamp holds water year-round, even through the dry season, which is very pronounced in Eastern Bolivia. The “shores” of the well defined swamp are lined with islands of forest, as well as drier grasslands. The forests are full of ceramics and earthworks, indicating that they were occupied in pre-Columbian times, and the grasslands are marked by raised fields, the remains of intensive agriculture. 

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