Tarabuco

Yesterday while I was at a museum in the middle of taking pictures, my camera broke. Again. With the same problem of the lens refusing to open or if it eventually opened, refusing to close. It took me a long time on a Saturday evening to find a repair shop that was open, but eventually dropped off the camera and was told I wouldn’t get it back till Monday night. It’s so ridiculously expensive compared to everything else here, and this is the second time I have to get the same problem fixed. Getting the zipper on my backpack repaired cost 15Bs (just over 2 bucks), whereas getting the camera fixed cost 400Bs the first time and 350Bs this time (over 100 USD total!). Which is a huge, huge amount of money here that would cover about 3 weeks in a hostel, etc – so I don’t really get why the electronics repair store gets so much money compared to anywhere else around. But beyond the money, the worst thing about not having my camera for two days is missing pictures of two important things – the Sunday market that I went to today and most importantly, my kids, who I’ve hardly taken any pictures of and won’t be able to anymore! The other girl at my house is leaving tonight and the other volunteer with the kids has a broken camera as well (as do way too many other tourists around here, there’s probably so much dust in the air that it messes with the lenses). Oh the joys of broken and malfunctioning things.
Yesterday morning, made on the brunch on the terrace with Sofie (Belgium) who is living at my house and two people she knew from London and Australia. It was a nice sunny morning and we have a good view of the city from the terrace. We had a delicious little feast of eggs, cheese, tomato, and avocado on baguettes, banana and dulce de leche sandwiches, chopped up mangos and papayas, and coffee/tea.
This morning, I went with the same group to Tarabuco. We took a “tourist bus” aka a normal micro filled with tourists an hour and a half away to the Sunday market. We winded around countless curves through the dry valley. In the distance were endless hillsides, mostly brown but with patches of green, scattered with brush, cacti, and oddly, eucalyptus trees. We were dropped off at the edge of the market and I was surprised at how calm it was, but that was just the edge. After stopping for coffee/juice at a little café where it took the owner the longest time to even acknowledge that we were there, we started strolling around the market. I wish I could have had my camera, but I did steal all of Sofie’s market pictures and a few of the kids, since she spent a couple days at the guardaria finishing up a mural that some other volunteers had started.
Did lots of bargaining, the best technique being asserting your lowest price and walking away when they decline, just to be called right back and get it at that price. There was one funny incident where I was looking at a piece of fabric that had 55 on it in masking tape and the owner of the stall told me that it was cheap and only cost 80Bs. I said 55, he said no, 80, and I showed him the tape and he got embarrassed and said fine, 55. I didn’t end up buying it, this was just at the beginning when I was gauging out prices, but it was an amusing way to start the morning and to show just how high the prices they start with would be. There were some very open areas where it was easy to walk slowly and browse, and other areas where there was a constant push from behind and I kept checking to make sure my backpack was closed, eventually moving it to the front. There were stalls of assorted imported shoes and clothes, laundry soaps, electronics, offerings to Pachamama (mother earth), and the usual array of miscellaneous everything. Beyond just experiencing the bustling market environment, I was there for the artisan goods - stall upon stall of brightly colored woven hats, scarves, blankets and fabrics, sweaters, and some jewelry, though much less of that than I expected. I still have some things that I am going to wait to buy because I don’t want to lug my extra bag around just yet, so I’ll have to do more searching in shops around Santa Cruz before I leave, but I did stock up on some things today. It was definitely very touristy, as I had heard and expected, and the locals there were much less friendly than any I have encouraged elsewhere. There were incredibly pushy women who would shove bracelets into our faces or place them onto our wrists even when we repeatedly said no thank you, and they would continue to follow us around and do all they could to get the bracelets at our eye level. I’m much more likely to buy from people who aren’t forcing things in front of me! As we walked deeper into the market, it actually got a bit less touristy to my surprise, with no more textiles and simply random everything else that locals were buying, and further in yet was the food market, similar to the Mercado Central in Sucre. No idea why, but there was a dead flamingo hanging on the wall outside one of the stalls. Wonderful! On the way back to the bus, I bought a papa relleno (a filled potato, this time with egg) from two girls who stared at me with huge eyes. And of course, couldn’t go without an ice cream, which they sell constantly in Chuquisaca area (the department of Bolivia that Sucre is in).
Back in town, it was immediately affirmed that it was Sunday – the world was completely shut down. The supermarket and the occasional restaurant and internet café were open, but nothing was happening anywhere. The usual colorful central market was closed, tarps covering most of the outside stalls. All of the storefronts had their metal doors pulled down, and the streets lacked their typical constant flow of cars and honking of horns. Even in the central plaza, only the pigeons and dogs remained to play, the normal crowds of people, snack vendors, and juice squeezers all inside for the day. A few weeks ago, there were quite a lot of people at the children’s park, but aside from being there, not too many people seem to venture out on Sunday afternoons.