I´d come down the mountain at speed to get to Salo on the evening before, where I stopped at the one shop in town to stock up on drinks. The tables in the shop / restaurant were set, but there was no dinner being cooked that day due to lack of demand. I was therefore on a sandwich diet for the evening. I ate all but one of my remaining tasty chorizo and cheese rolls, keeping one for a light breakfast the next day before the the short cycle to Tupiza where I would restock my supplies.
I was cold when I got to the shop and took a second jacket out of my SealLine bag on the back of my bike. My hands were numb from the windchill from the 700m or so vertical descent into Salo and I didn´t realise that I hadn´t clipped the bag fastener in properly after leaving the shop. I continued down the very bumpy road which shook my bag open and spilled my fleece, my warm trousers, my high visibility vest and a couple of other things on the road behind me. 500m down the road I realised that something was wrong as I had half of the village jogging along behind me. I stopped for the folks, mainly the children, to catch up and kindly return my things that I´d strewn on the way down. They were some very helpful and friendly folks there in Salo, one very red faced, who I think picked up the first thing that I´d expelled 500m back and run the whole way to politely return it. After a bit of a chat, a thankyou and a rendition of the trip so far and future intentions, I got on my way, bag now secured and refilled.
I got up in the morning and photographed the Western camp site. The light was low in the evening when I arrived and the morning was much clearer for my phone camera.
I packed and cycled for maybe 15 minutes and stopped at a site on the road with a good view of the valley. A beautiful spot, unfortunately but picturesquely marked with a gravestone of someone who had passed on there. You do see a large number of such grave markers when cycling along the country roads in Peru and Bolivia. Some mark the spot in the country where someone has been burried. If you work on the land, then you get planted there on the land when the time comes. Not in the field with the crops, nor in the back garden, but close to the road. Also, for those unfortunate enough to meet with a road accident, there are markers of the spot, though the person may be laid to rest elsewhere. That´s my understanding of the RIP markers on the roads here. This one I went to photograph with the scenic view in the background and my phone turned itself off. I turned it back on, switched to camera, pointed at the grave and pressed the shutter and it turned itself back off. I tried once more and when pressed, my internet browser opened instead of the camera. Not having much breakfast, low blood sugar, and not too ready to rationalise the situation mentality, I mutter to the deceased that I wouldn´t put the picture on my blog and pointed my camera to the view behind without the final resting place marker and it worked just fine. I decided not to work out what had gone on; it was very cold at that time in the morning and the low temperature is the rational cause of the misfunction.
15 minutes further on, around 6:30am, I came to a house in the countryside between Salo and Tupiza. There were two guys in their 30´s standing outside who said hello and I stopped for a chat. They asked me if I wanted to come inside and pray for their grandmother. It´s not the sort of thing that I´m particularly expert in, or actually believe in too strongly, but it didn´t seem like the sort of thing to turn down. The guys told me that it was All Souls Day which is why they made the suggestion. I parked my bike against their house and went to the buildings at the back.
There were five women in one of the building cooking up a feast, and in the second building out the back, there was a drummer in his 50´s sound asleep after a heavy night on the local chicha home brew and a piper slouched in another seat there. In the same room was what you might call an altar, covered in biscuits, more biscuits than I´ve ever seen together, all home made and decorated, some in the shape of animals, some in the shape of people. All either stuck on the thorns of a bush that was planted at the front of the altar, or piled high atop the altar. It was a strange start to the day.
02-11-2010 The biscuit altar
I was kind of wondering what to make of it all when the mother of the guys brought me a large plate of chile-bread and cakes and a steaming hot mug of sweet matte tea. I had a seat on the tree trunk seat that they brought out for me, and that was the start of my one-day religious re-birth.
We chatted in Spanish until after lunchtime. I got well fed with soup, lamb, salad, local grown potatoes and corn. We spoke about my trip, Bolivia, Peru, sheep farming in Scotland (I had to do charades for a sheep, which got my knees dusty) and had a remarkably funny time there with the family and neighbours who had contributed to the biscuit hoard.
02-10-2010 The father and his two mates forming the band.
I had six different types of the local chicha by the time I left in the afternoon, with a bag full of tasty biscuits, and had prayed for a grandmother, who I never new, but now think was probably a good lady. The people of Bolivia have been very friendly, and the hospitality of this family was very warm indeed.
I ate my first salad in Bolivia that lunchtime. It was fresh and spicey with local chilies, lots of tomato and carrots. The general advice is to avoid salads and veg that is not cooked as the water used to grow and clean the sald is not clean. The water that cleaned this salad came from the tap in the back garden, so I was a little dubious, but didn´t want to offend my host, and I also really fancied the good looking salad. It may have been The Big Fella who looked after my intestines, or it may have been the alcohol in the six different chichas that did the spiritual cleansing, but from that day on I have been dong Brittish poos once again. Before All Souls Day they were very much those of a gringo in Bolivia.
02-11-2010 The afternoon descent into Tupiza
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