OUTWARD OR UPWARD BO

OUTWARD (OR UPWARD) BOUND

On December 10th. 1993 we were counting on Simon (our new 9 and a half month old bearded collie - like Sally only greyish) getting us up at 6.30 as usual, but, lo and behold!, he slept in that morning and so did we.  Fortunately, Bob, the friend who is staying in our house while we are away and had stayed over that night, got up at 7 so we did not miss our plane.  At 8.30 we gave the dogs their tranquilizers as prescribed and the caravan, composed of Maggie and Tim (our neighbours), Bob and us set off.  We collected Lois (a Canadian friend) in Estepona and headed for the airport.  Within 30 minutes the dogs were completely groggy, and by the time we reached the airport they were both legless, but still conscious.  We checked in and an hour before departure we checked the dogs through.  They did not bat an eyelid as they were taken away.

The 50 minute flight to Madrid was fine except that we were worried about how the animals would be faring.  No need to worry.  A special truck came to take them off the plane and they were waiting for us in the baggage hall when we got there.  They were overjoyed to see us, of course, but not the slightest bit perturbed.  This was a relief to us since it augured well for the rest of the journey.

We had deliberately arranged to have a long wait in Madrid to give the animals time to get over their first sensation of being shut in before confronting the long overnight haul to Rio.  Being in airports is like being in a large department store: after a while you begin to feel disembodied.  The dogs were still very calm.  I called the vet and we decided to reduce the dosage.  Since it had taken effect so quickly in the morning, I decided to give them their second dose 3/4 - 1 hour rather than 2 hours  before check-in.  When I had given them the pills every passer-by in the airport wanted to talk to them with the result that by 10.45p.m. they were brighter than they had been all day and we had no option but to put them in their boxes.  However, they didn't protest as they went down the luggage conveyor.

The flight to Rio was 9 and a half hours’ long.  The plane was a DC10, so it was fairly noisy.  However, we took off our shoes and covered our eyes  with eye masks and made valiant, though not too successful, efforts to sleep after Iberia's abortive effort at providing a vegetarian meal - half a plate of cucumber, some carrot and asparagus!

The plane entered Brazilian territory in the early hours of the morning and we flew over Brazil for about 4 and a half hours before reaching Rio, which gives you some idea of the immensity of the country.  There was some confusion over the time differential, but it turned out to be 3 hours from Spain and 2 hours from the U.K.

We arrived at Rio airport at 6.30 a.m. local time, and there was only one passport control wallah on duty.  Fortunately we were among the first off the plane and were at the head of the queue.  Two more appeared later.  That was pretty painless.


Now to recover the dogs in the baggage hall.  The conveyor started moving, but only cases appeared - no dogs.  I asked a young policeman where they could be located and was told that they would come out the door he was "guarding".  I waited.  No sign.  I asked him if he could go and find out what was happening.  He deferred to his companion who seemed to be his senior who just said, "Oh, they'll come.  Just wait here."  Since I was not prepared to wait, I insisted, and he simply took himself off to guard another door where there were no pushy women.  Robert then caught the Iberia representative and she went off to sort things out.  In a trice they appeared, anxious to get out of their boxes, delighted to see us, but none the worse for wear.

As I opened the doors and let them out (on their leads) a customs official announced in imperious tones that they could not tread Brazilian soil and must remain in their boxes.  So, we loaded the dogs on one trolley and the cases on another and proceeded through customs control, whereupon a lady official said we had to go to the Ministry of Agriculture representative to get a pass.  I thought Robert was going to hit her - but he didn't.  Since the vet had not arrived for work there was nothing for it but to wait, but I let the dogs out anyway and to hell with the customs official!

Having reached the end of his tether, Robert went off to remonstrate with the customs man.  He waved his U.N. passport at him and the response was amazing!  He came rushing over and told me that we should have said in the beginning that we had a diplomatic passport and urged me to take the dogs out walking, running, flying - any way I pleased.

However, by then the vet had arrived and I had given him our Spanish veterinary certificates.  When I told the customs man that he said, "Oh, what a pity! You could just have gone through". Nevertheless, it was fortunate that we did see the vet because he issued us with a certificate to be handed in on departure (which they asked for) and another to hand over to the Bolivian authorities on arrival (which nobody asked for and I have still got).

This episode is pretty indicative of Brazil, I think.  The people are gorgeous but the system is over-bureaucratic.  As a young Brazilian told us, "Here in Brazil we have the knack of making everything 100 times more complicated than necessary".

There were hundreds of people waiting to meet friends etc. in the reception area.  When they saw Simon it was like a mass reaction.  The crowd  surged forward exclaiming "Que bonitinho! Que beleza!"  The dogs were a real wow everywhere we went in Rio.

Fortunately the hotel was on the second floor of the airport terminal itself, so moving the boxes and luggage was pretty painless.  By the time we actually got to the hotel nearly 4 hours had passed since our arrival, so we fed the dogs, and after a magnificent Brazilian breakfast with gorgeous tropical fruit we all had a lie down to rest and let the stress ebb away.

By the afternoon we were feeling a lot better, so we decided to take a taxi and have a look at Rio.  The taxi driver turned out to be the son of a woman from Carmona in Sevilla.  He was a civil servant, but the pay is so bad ($200 a month) that he worked in a taxi cooperative in the evenings and at week-ends.

What an indescribably magnificent situation!  The natural bay is spectacular, the beaches white and glistening, the vegetation lush and green.  The Cariocas (the inhabitants of Rio) say that God spent six days making the world and the seventh he dedicated exclusively to Rio.  I think they are right.  We did a circuit from the airport through the commercial area to Copacabana, Ipanema, Leblon and Tijuca and back round the other way - a 2 hour drive.  

The Maracanã stadium is impressive indeed.  By the beach there are 8 football fields for anyone who wants to play.  Everywhere there were children and teenagers playing football barefoot.  No wonder Brazil produces such terrific football players.


Despite all the dire warnings, nobody troubled us at all.  Labour costs must be low because the airport terminal was the cleanest place I have ever seen with squads of people cleaning endlessly.

The people are quite splendid - gentle, pleasant, courteous, talkative, soft-spoken and laid-back.  The lift operator (an old black man) sang me a song about a girl and her dogs when I was taking the dogs for a walk!  I must say that having spent such a long time studying Brazilian literature I  was a bit apprehensive about my first visit to the country.  Would I understand the accent and be able to make myself understood?  Would I be disappointed?  I have to say that after the initial set-to with the powers-that-be this brief encounter was a positive experience in every respect.

It was an early rise on Sunday 12th - 4.30 a.m.  After taking the dogs out, showering, paying the bill etc. we got to the departure lounge at 6 a.m.  I tried to give the dogs their pills, but Simon wasn't having any and I had to go back to the hotel to get something soft to disguise them.  By 7 a.m. they were pretty relaxed so we put them in their boxes and they were carried off - much nicer than being sent along a conveyor.

The flight from Rio was by far the most arduous leg of the journey, because the plane stops at São Paulo (a 1 hour hop and a 1 hour stop) and then continues on to Santa Cruz de la Sierra in eastern Bolivia.  Another 30 minute stop.  Then on to Cochabamba and the final 40 minute hop to La Paz.  The Varig personnel were great: Iberia staff should be sent over for a short course on preparing vegetarian meals.  What a feast!

São Paulo is an immense sprawling city in beautiful surroundings.  Santa Cruz seems fairly small, despite being the second city of Bolivia.  The surrounding terrain is flat and green and it was windy.  There would also seem to be a military base near the airport as there was a huge US military transport plane sitting there.

The altiplano is grey and drab-looking in contrast to the green we had seen before.  The plane hardly seemed to have come out of the clouds before it was landing.  There were lots of little plots walled off with adobe walls and adobe houses.  The more prosperous dwellers were adding brick-built upper floors.

With some trepidation we left the plane after all the stories of altitude sickness, called "soroche".  However, I must say we had no ill effects to speak of.  We made a conscious effort to walk slowly.  There is a notice in the airport to the effect that medical attention at the airport is free for anyone who might require it.  

La Paz airport terminal looks like one of those colonial outposts you see in films about Africa in the 1930s or something.  None of the shining cleanliness of Rio.  The luggage conveyor is a wooden structure with an old, oft-mended rubber belt.  You are immediately aware that you are in the poorest country in South America and I knew for the first time the origin of the expression "a sinking feeling" - I could feel my heart sink right down to the soles of my feet.


I went straight up to an official-looking bod and asked him where the dogs would come through.  On the belt.  Impossible, (the belt is about 3 metres above ground level) I want to collect them.  You can't.  Why not?  Well, talk to the customs official - a woman.  It was finally arranged that, once we had collected our luggage, he (the original official bod) would send someone with us to fetch them.  You have to hire a porter (mostly indigenous men) to carry your things because there are no trolleys.  When we collected our stuff we went back to the chief official who was not in a mood for much work.  He couldn't send anyone now.  We would have to wait until everyone else had gone through customs and then .....  Nothing for it - out with the passport again!  So and so, take these "señores" to collect their dogs.  Hurry now!  Off we went.  Again, despite the stop-overs and 6 and a half hours’ journey, they were perky, delighted to see us, but not stressed.

A TOYOTA van from the UN was waiting which was big enough to carry all the luggage.  The La Paz representative, was arriving 10 minutes after us on a flight from Santa Cruz (We actually saw his plane take off after us), so we waited for him.

La Paz airport is at an altitude of 4,100m.  We drove (or rather catapulted) down to the centre which is at 3,600m. and then continued down to the Calacoto district, one of the 2 most exclusive residential areas, at 3,100m.  This was because the Calacoto Hotel was the only one which would accept the dogs.  Despite the exclusive nature of the district, the hotel was pretty tacky, but the people were nice and the area was quiet.

La Paz is surreal! It is situated in the most unlikely location - in a canyon surrounded by stark, bare hills.  Apparently the reason it was located here was that the canyon was relatively sheltered from the winds which blow on the altiplano and because the Spaniards found gold in the Choqueyapu River which crosses the city.  It was named La Paz to commemorate the end of the squabble between Pizarro and Almagro in Peru.

The La Paz representative, who is married to a grand-daughter of a former president of Bolivia  who was exiled in London where she was born, was worried about the project and anxious to speak to Robert straight away, so poor Robert only had time to change before he was spirited off again.

Two tea experts had arrived from Sri Lanka and Calcutta that same morning, so they went to their hotel in the city centre to talk.  Sarath Tissa Gunatilleke, the man from Sri Lanka, got palpitations and his blood pressure dropped.  The doctor had to be called and he was sent to bed to rest.  The other man, Dilip Mukherjee, whose wife is a Banerjee and is probably related to Mr. Banerjee! (an old Indian friend of ours), studied mechanical engineering in Belfast before specializing in tea processing, so the two engineers had a high old time slagging the English. Filippo Gotti, an Italian agronomist who spent a year in Bolivia a couple of years ago on an Italian aid project, is in charge of the agricultural side.  Robert liked the team.

I stayed at the hotel with the dogs and rested.  You can feel your body gradually adapting to the altitude: it takes less effort to do things as the day goes by.  The main symptom which I found was that, when climbing stairs, my thigh muscles were kind of cramped, due, I imagine, to the thinness of the air and lack of oxygen.  When Robert came back about 8p.m. we went to the nearest eating place - the Tasca Vasca (if you please) - and filled an empty spot.

After that we watched an interview on TV with the President of Bolivia, Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada.  He has been in office for 4 months.  Apparently when he put forward his candidature there were many protests because people (the European population) complained that he didn't speak good Spanish: he has a strong US accent for some reason I haven't sussed out yet.  However, he said that over 70% of the population of Bolivia speak Spanish as a second language, so in that respect he was more representative than others.  He seemed to have the right ideas - education (including bilingual education in the mother tongue) and job creation by capitalizing companies. Since then I have discovered that he is totally ineffectual, dances to the tune called by the US embassy and has neo-liberal economic ideas which are disastrous for a country such as this one.


The next day when Robert went off to a series of meetings with various people I set out to find a place to buy some things and came across a shopping centre called Centro Comercial San Miguel. It was a mixture of posh shops where you could buy the latest of anything, including Benetton and computer accessories, and indigenous women selling fruit and everything under the sun from their baskets on the pavement.  The women wear long wide skirts with an apron on top, a bowler hat on their heads and a colourful shawl of beautiful woven fabric which they use to carry their babies or their wares - or both - on their backs.  They have long, luxuriant jet-black hair worn in 2 plaits with tassels plaited in at the ends.

The weather at La Paz is interesting.  In the morning and late afternoon a strong tropical sun shines and it is hot in the sun.  However, in the shade it is cool: apparently the difference in temperature between sun and shade can be about 15ºC.  At midday it clouds over and at night the temperature drops considerably.  It often rains at night at this time of year (southern hemisphere summer), frequently with a thunder storm, and in the morning the air is fresh and cool and clean.  On the altiplano the night temperature can be -20ºC.  I am told that the main temperature difference is between night and day and sun and shade rather than between winter and summer.