email from rory - carnival!

here´s a great email i received from my friend rory who is traveling up in bolivia now:

Anyway, I am no longer feeling blleeahh, in fact yesterday was a dia dorado, one of the golden ones that makes this travelling gig all worth it. Best day ever!! Got up still blleeah, but the old lady in the hostel me vió con soroche (altitude sickness) and gave me a big cup of coca leaf tea, and for once I actually felt like my lungs were filling up when I breathed. So I said whattaya got for crippling toothache??? a few coca leaves on the tooth and it went numb, novocaine for the soul, and I was on my way. I went off on a tour to the silver mines (do you know about Potosí?? the Cerro Rico, the mountain of silver that built an empire, in 1600 it was one of the biggest richest cities in the world. For Carnival the streets were paved with silver. 8 million indigenous and African slaves died. Read 'Las Venas Abiertas de America Latina' Eduardo Galeano. READ IT!!) Before we went to the mines we stopped at the market to buy some presents for the miners, and yesterday was El Jueves de las Comadres, the womens carnival, all the bolivian women were in super high spirits, throwing confetti and streamers on all the girls. One old toothless lady stopped to kiss all the girls in our tour group on the cheek. When she got to me she said 'oh no, you´re not getting away' and when I stooped to kiss her she planted me one full on the lips. Good luck or what?? We headed to the mines which are still going strong after 450 years, and it was one of the most interesting, humbling, depressing things I´ve ever done. The miners work pretty much the same way as 400 years ago, in heat up to 45 degrees (that´s, eh, 120??) hauling rock and hammering. Average career before contracting Silicosis (black lung) is 10 years. We chatted to a miner, Alberto, who worked all day by himself in a tiny hole, hammering and hauling, hammering and hauling. He had 5 kids and did it for them, and when I asked if his sons would follow in his footsteps, he just turned away and muttered something in Quechua. I felt like an idiot. He´d been down in the mine for 17 years. He was the same age as me. He looked 50. Anyway, after the tour I ate and quickly checked my e-mail, to find out that Deco was coming to Bolivia, and that a photo of me kissing a bearded man is now on the internet. otra vez me matastes!!!!. Then I met up with our tour guides and some bolivian friends and other backpackers to celebrate the womens carnival. The biggest party was in the street market, where most women work, and the guide's wife has a stall. We did a little ceremony for the Pachamama and then spent hours drinking some crazy local alcohol and engaging in running water pistol and shaving foam fights with all the kids. There was a huge 6'6 guy from California, the kids called him King Kong and he would lift them up 2 or 3 at a time. One little guy taught me loads of words in Quechua, and then emptied his shaving foam can in my ear, and then said sorry, let me help you clean yourself up, and cracked a water balloon on my head. All this to the backdrop of Mariachi type brass bands. Wow!! we went to a nightclub and I vaguely remember promising free english lessons to half the bar, and singing Cuesta Abajo, that tango I always used sing when I was washing the dishes, with all the requisite emotions. I went home and the little old lady who gave me the tea was still awake, dancing in the kitchen, legless drunk, and for the 2nd time in one day I got a smacker on the lips from an old Bolivian lady. What a day. wish you were there. today I got up at 2. This carnival lasts 4 more days. argh. right, I'm going to look at your website thingy. Be cool!! you're in Buenos Aires, it's obligatory.