ISSUE 36

RELEASE DATE: 01 Feb, 2014

EDITORIAL BY Amaru Villanueva Rance

It would be possible to connect forty thousand hamlets […] with a spider web of six-foot-wide trails […] providing the country with 200,000 three-wheeled mechanical donkeys – five on the average for each hamlet […] A ‘donkey’ could make 15 mph, and carry loads of 850 pounds (from Deschooling Society)

It was 1971 and Ivan Illich had spent over a decade and a half in Latin America. This was his utopian vision for a transportation system which was at once practical and built for a society like ours. At its heart was the idea that the six-horsepower engines that powered these ‘mechanical donkeys’ could also be used as a plough and pump, and designed in such a way that anyone could learn to repair them.

Fast forward four decades and look around La Paz. While there are no mechanical donkeys in sight, the system we have in its place is just as outlandish—and sometimes almost as visionary. The country is home to an estimated 1.2 million vehicles, of which over 300 thousand can be found in La Paz alone, a figure that has risen 90% in the past fifteen years. Bridges and roads are constantly being built but the traffic seems to grow at twice the rate.

Heads peer out of the windows of minibuses shouting destinations; young men and women dressed as zebras teach people to cross the road; cholitas wearing Robocop-style helmets enforce traffic routes to prevent trameaje; a 50-year-old blue bus known as ‘El Inmortal’ continues to grumble in circulation. A steel spider web is also being spun up above: the teleférico has arrived, and dangling cabins henceforth associated with Swiss ski resorts will soon be part of the world’s largest network of urban transit cable cars.

This superorganism is evolving beyond the infrastructure. With the gradual disappearance of the voceador comes the rise of a new character known as el datero who, in exchange for some coins, tips off public transport drivers allowing them to better plan their routes: ‘the 230 just passed, followed by an empty 355’. Local minibuses have invariably been adapted to fit an extra row of seats (the move is consistent with the anatomy of most locals, but remains a practical joke on anyone taller than 5’9’’—ie most tourists). And roaming alongside 1967 Land Cruisers are living-room-sized-2013 Hummers, unviably huge compared to the narrow streets of the city centre. It’s retro-futuristic, anarcho-anachronistic, organised chaos in all its glory.

Whether or not you are aware of it, you are also part of this superorganism. The moment you set foot out of your house you are plunged into a whirling world of pedestrians, vehicles, smog and chatter. E pluribus unum: ‘one out of many’; each element seemingly follows a logic of its own, yet somehow it all comes together as a single whole on the busy arteries of La Paz. Missed connections, chance encounters, transport strikes, and the daily honking war are all part of this choreography.

As if caught in a trancadera, these musings are (appropriately) going nowhere. We invite you to stay put, hop on the Bolivian Express and start flicking the pages. We’ll help you get to nowhere twice as fast.

ARTICLES FROM THIS ISSUE

TO EL ALTO BY BIKE

28 Feb, 2014 | Alison Walsh

Why getting up the hills is only part of the challenge. La Paz is not a cyclist’s city. A child wobbling around the Plaza Avaroa, a group of lads on BMXs doing tricks, someone slowly plodding up...

THE TELEFÉRICO

28 Feb, 2014 | Alison Walsh

From El Alto to Zona Sur La Paz: a unique city, scrambling its way up slopes so steep that only a madman, you would think, could possibly imagine building anything here. And its transport problem...

THIS WAS KILOMETER ZERO

28 Feb, 2014 | Nia Haf

La Paz’s train station has been closed for passenger services since 1996. The abandoned building is now engulfed by the construction site of the city's new teleférico and yet there are clear remind...

EL 2

28 Feb, 2014 | Wilmer Machaca

These famous blue buses began circulating around the city of La Paz in 1938, and have since become iconic. They barely need signs anymore as they are instantly recognisable from as far as the eye c...

MORNING ON A MINIBUS

08 Mar, 2014 | Finn Jubak

La Paz is due for a huge change in how its citizens commute. Finn Jubak tags along on a venerable mode of transportation that might soon be a relic of bygone days. I stood in front of the Iglesia...

THE BUS WARS

08 Mar, 2014 | Finn Jubak

Minibus Drivers Are Furious About the Puma Katari Buses...But No One Else Seems to Mind On January 20, minibus drivers marched across La Paz and gathered in the Plaza Mayor to protest against...

THEY BATIN´

08 Mar, 2014 | Claudia Méndez

THE NEPTUNE The Neptune also known as the aguatero is one of the mightiest of La Paz’s police riot control water engines. It has a 2000 liter capacity and 2 power jet motors, yet this aquatic monste...

CHOLITA POWER

28 Feb, 2014 | Wilmer Machaca

It’s been 10 months since El Alto introduced their Municipal Transport Guards (GMTs). It is the city’s response to the friendly zebras roaming the streets of La Paz, cartwheeling across the s...

CRUISING EL LAGO

28 Feb, 2014 | Nia Haf

Lake Titicaca’s boat owners in and around the tourist town of Lake Titicaca. Despite being a landlocked nation there are plenty of opportunity to travel by boat in Bolivia. Bolivia is home to the hi...

LA ESPERA

08 Mar, 2014 | Nia Haf

Seconds, Minutes, Hours It's rush hour in La Paz and hoards of people are making their way through the city. Queues of pedestrians begin to form as people wait to return to El Alto, some heading...

THEY SEE ME ROLLIN´

08 Mar, 2014 | Wilmer Machaca

TORITOS A new form of transport has descended on El Alto. Toritos (‘little bulls’) or mototaxis, as they are otherwise known, have made it their aim to conquer the whole of this ever-expanding ci...