Travelogue

To escape the incessant cold I decided to go our for a drink. Sandra wanted to stay by the heater as she had a tiring day down the mines. So looking for a pub I stumbled across a non-descript bar with no name. I walked in and ordered a beer. At first the bar girl brought me a 2 liter bottle of beer and on seeing my surprise soon took it away and brought me a much smaller bottle of just the 1 liter! Beers meant for sharing here you see… I wasn’t too sure what to make of the bar. It had a massive picture of The Beatles on the main wall, bright red fluffy fur on the remaining walls that were also covered by mirrors. The bar was very cold and all staff wore big puffer type winter jackets. The clientele seemed to be a right mixture from a few couples having a quiet drink to groups of young people sharing a beer. Wanting to move on I asked the staff if they could recommend me another bar close by. Maybe it was my Spanish but they found it hard to suggest anywhere that wasn’t a night club so I was taken outside and a small boy was called over and given instructions to take me up the road to another bar.

Feeling a tad awkward we set off up the hill, with me trying to make certain that there was indeed a bar at the top. Anyway after a while an old man, who had been following, suddenly intervened and after a very disjointed conversation took over from the boy, who he told to go away, back down the hill. I gave the boy a Boliviano for his trouble and said goodbye. Now feeling very awkward I was split between telling the old boy not to bother and also intrigued as to where we would end up.

Eventually we stumbled across, and entered, ‘Sociedad de 15 Mayo‘, basically a working mans drinking club. As we walked up to the bar, everyone to a tea were following us with there eyes with an air of bemusement. The old boy had straightened his posture and, I noted, was almost proudly showing me off! We took our place up at the bar and ordered 2 drinks of Bolivian pisco with some added lemon soda… not too dissimilar to a pisco sour and not bad for 1 Boliviano!

Soon there was quite a gathering as some curious locals had joined us at the bar. We were all talking, them asking me where I was from and they were eager to know what I thought of Bolivia. I told them I was from London in the UK and that I liked Bolivia very much to which they all cheered, shook my hand and ordered the barman to pour more pisco! I asked them about the local football team and this brought more cheers as they happily told me Potosi had a very good football team [Real Potosi], infact one of the best in Bolivia and someone added in South America; with this remark it was quite obviously the Pisco taking it’s toll!

After about an hour of drinking with these old boys I said my goodbyes and had to shake everyones hand in the bar before I could make it outside. Some of them even followed me to the door and waved after me, cheering and smiling. It was such an enjoyable yet strange night. I guess it could have gone so wrong but it turned into one of the most enjoyable nights out I’ve had in South America so far. And it’s just brought it home how friendly, welcoming and curious the Bolivians are to visitors of their country!

I stumbled along my way, back down the hill and into the old hostel. Sandra was asleep and it wasn’t long before I joined her…