Now that I’m back in the USA I’ve been reflecting on some aspects of my research experience. When I started this blog, I wanted to chronicle my experiences but also how it was to use an iPad in the field. Before I comment on the iPad I want to lay out what exactly my “field environment” was to contextualize my comments. I used the iPad in a completely urban setting and the apartment where I stayed had Internet access. I provided my own wireless router (for better or worse) and I occasionally took the iPad to a cafe to type up notes after an interview.

Portability

It’s hard to beat the portability of the iPad. Lighter than most netbooks and certainly slimmer, the iPad was a great lightweight device whether I was traveling on an airplane or walking down the sidewalk with it in my shoulder bag.

Portability is always limited by battery life. The device might be super lightweight but if you have to recharge it constantly there’s not much use in it. But with a 10-hour battery life the iPad really excelled. My laptop (2008 MacBook) couldn’t dream of holding a charge for that long and many netbooks can’t boast that much battery life either.

Low Profile

Portability leads into my next point; keeping a low profile. There was nothing that worried me more than traveling all the way to Bolivia, conducting research and keeping notes on an electronic device and then losing it or worse, stolen. The iPad is so slim though that I was able to carry it in my shoulder bag without looking like a another gringo with an overstuffed bag (not to mention saving my back the strain of lugging five to eight pounds of computer around).

Keeping a low profile though might go out the window though when you actually take the iPad out of your bag. While I saw many people with iPads in La Paz’s cafes the device is still new and tends to attract attention. Defensive seating helps to minimize any unwanted attraction. Try not to sit in wide open areas; use a wall to limit someone’s ability to see or grab your machine. Also, sit facing the wall. This way someone has to reach over you to grab your iPad before running for the door.

In all honesty though, I never once felt unsafe with my personal belongings in La Paz. Many coffee shops are replete with laptop workers (if you’ve ever been to an Alexanders Cafe you know what I’m talking about) and despite being a foreigner you probably don’t stand out as much as you think.

Wireless

The iPad does not have an ethernet port and is completely dependent on a wireless signal for Internet. Wireless is pretty widespread in the US but not so in La Paz. Some cafes I went to with wi-fi did not work with my iPad. This could be as much a problem with the cafes’ wireless as with the iPad. (Friends in La Paz also told me that Alexanders Cafe was notoriously unreliable for Apple users.) Even in my apartment we had issues setting up the router. If I had not been able to set up my router at the apartment this would have been a major setback.

But this is an interesting point if you’re conducting research in the (literal) field where you don’t have Internet access anyway. Here, I think the iPad’s portability and battery life easily outweigh the negatives of depending on wireless signals.

Functionality

There is a lot of debate about the functionality of the iPad. Some people recommended that I buy a wireless keyboard if I were planning on taking detailed notes. I think this is overkill, personally. The typing on the touch screen is not so onerous that I was willing to sacrifice portability. (Could you imagine carrying a separate keyboard with the iPad?) I use a mix of Evernote, PlainText and Pages to organize my field notes; I used BlogPress to write and publish these posts in Bolivia.

The thing to watch out for is auto-correct. It’s not hard to miss a key on the screen and find yourself about to publish a gaff. My personal favorite was when I tried to type “neoliberalism” and it came out “blessed aims.” A friend of mine pointed out that typing on the iPad works better for people who don’t know how to type (yours truly included) because you basically have to hunt-and-peck. It might be that as touchscreens improve people will eventually type cleanly without having to follow every keystroke, but that day is not today. If you’re an accomplished typer it might be difficult to transition to touchscreen keyboards.

Final Grade: B+

Overall, the iPad 2 is a great tool for field research. It offers great portability, long battery life, great apps for note taking and PDF viewing, and offers a low profile for researchers not looking to attract a lot of attention. However, the wireless only Internet complicates the device’s utility. Bringing a router to use the Internet detracts from the portability of the iPad and also its reliability. Wireless signals in La Paz (or the iPad’s connectivity) made Internet access a gamble. However, if Internet isn’t an option to begin with, the iPad is a fantastic portable tool for the field.

Food is one of my passions. I love to eat, cook and share food with friends and family. So naturally, I’ve been tasting my way around La Paz. The food is simple but satisfying; basic but always entertaining to my pallet.

Above, I’m eating fricase (not to be confused with fricassee). It’s a hearty spicy soup with potato, hominy and lots of pork. Adriana assures me that the dish is a favorite hangover cure. The ingredients are good but not the star. It’s the spicy broth made with aji amarillo, a slender pale green or yellow Andean pepper. Dishes made with aji range from Peru (perhaps you’ve tried aji de gallina or papas a la huancaína) down throughout Bolivia.

Another traditional dish made with this flavorful saffron-colored broth is quesu macha (sp.). Adriana’s grandmother invited me over for this dish a few weeks back and it was a memorable lunch (see my previous post, “Lunch with Grandma”—the dish did not have chicken ;-). Take a similar version of the aji broth and add potatoes, lima beans and a heart-stopping amount of queso fresco. Quesu macha is just as hearty as the fricase and leaves you in a deep food coma afterwards.

You can’t leave La Paz without tasting salteñas. To the uninitiated salteñas might look like empanadas; don’t be fooled. Salteñas are like empanadas in that they both share the concept of delicious fillings inside baked dough. But salteñas and empanadas share a sun and moon relationship. Salteñas, supposedly because they are heavier, are only eaten in the morning. (Don’t ask me why; this seems to run counter to how must Americans approach breakfast.) You would be hard pressed to find one past noon. Hang around a salteña stand or cafe and you’ll see people picking up orders of the tasty pockets by the dozen as they vie for the most loved person in the office.

The little pockets are also sealed longitudinally, giving them a distinct cockscomb that browns in the oven. Traditional salteñas are made with a beef stew-like filling and accented with a slice of hard boiled egg but you can find chicken and even vegetarian ones if you know where to look (try La Paceña in Sopocachi). Empanadas have a more free-wheeling approach to fillings, ranging from plain cheese to beef with lime, and have a latitudinal seal. Their dough can also be softer than salteñas. You’ll find empanadas all over the city from noon into the evening.

Finally I have to write a quick ode to my favorite fruit, granadilla. It’s not unique to Bolivia; I’ve eaten it in Mexico, Costa Rica and Peru too. It’s just so deliciously gross. Crack open the orange husk and slurp up the tiny green caviar-like fruit. The sweet gelatinous fruit contrasts well against the crunch of the tiny seeds floating inside like tadpoles.

They is much more to eat in Bolivia but these are just a few of my favorites. Always try something new!

Hasta pronto,

-Zach

In keeping with the theme of vehicles in Bolivia I wanted to mention the benediction of Copacabana. The picture below is from my trip to Isla del Sol (check out the posts a few back to read more about it).

If you step into a taxi or minibus here in La Paz you might see an ornate tasseled banner across the top of the windshield reading, “Bendecido en Copacabana” (Blessed in Copacabana). The velvety banners come in all sorts of colors and have the phrase stiched into them with shiny gold letters. The blessing happens here, at this church in Copacabana. The Sunday we passed through the streets were crammed with cars, trucks and even semis decked out in flowers, ribbons and palm fronds waiting for their blessing of safe travel.


Here’s a better look at the church, a sight worth seeing in itself.

I’m not clear on what role the Catholic faith plays in this blessing. On the waterfront I saw shamans waving herbs over car engines and blowing purifying alcohol over the radiators. Chock it up to syncretic religious practices, I guess.

Hasta pronto,

-Zach

I couldn’t keep a blog about La Paz and not mention the micro-buses or “micros” (pronounced mee-crows). These 1950’s era school buses have found new life rumbling down the streets of La Paz. For a few bolivianos you too can bounce and jostle with locales on these mammoths of public transportation.

The kicker is that, to me anyway, the name “micro” sounds smaller than the mini-buses, which are just overcrowded minivans. It took me a little while to set aside my instincts and remember which was “micro” and which was “mini”.


The best things about these buses is their decoration and individual, um, spirit. While these two are brightly colored and even sport a screaming eagle decal, some have wolves howling at the moon or other designs destined for a hipster’s t-shirt.

But the names really take the cake. Names range from the pious (“Jehovah is my Shepard”; “Jesus Loves You”) to the liberating (“Free Like the Wind”) to the down right aggressive (“Never Retreat, Never Surrender”). Some even have words to describe their service or personal values. The first one reads, “soul life heart”; I read another that listed “elegance” and “comfort”.

If you’re ever waiting for a friend on a street corner, there’s few better ways to pass the time than enjoy the flare of public transpiration in La Paz.

Hasta pronto,

-Zach

When the sun goes down there’s not much to do on Isla del Sol and even less when you’re alone. But my early bedtime was rewarded with a beautiful sunrise. The sun rises on the other side of the island but the orange, pink and blues cast by the sun’s rays pictured here is actually a better view I’m told. The view was enough for me to shuffle out to the terrace in pajamas, hiking boots and my jacket.

By 9am I was out walking the trail. If you’re ever walking the trails of Isla del Sol remember to keep small change on you. The island has three different tolls that the communities levy on hikers. The more touristed northern shore gets the most visitors (mostly two hour roundtrip tourists) so the middle and southern half decided to charge there own tolls to get in on the action. It was an interesting experience after spending a month studying rentier economies.


The hotel owner suggested I avoid the island’s notorious morning wind and take the eastern trail north and follow the high road back. Behind me you can see the decent from Ch’alla. Note the terraced hillsides. The island is covered with these pre-Incan works of agronomy, some still in use. The islanders grow lima beans, corn, potatoes, and oca, a potato-like tuber that’s a little sweet.


Besides the occasional local transporting firewood or crops on a donkey I was alone for most of the morning. I finally descended into a sleepy village near the beach. Mud brick homes and rock fences lined the road through town.


Here’s a view from one of the white sand beaches.


After about three hours I made it to the Tiwanacota ruins on the northern tip of the island, the “Labyrinth.” The crude rock walls must have made for cold nights as the wind blew off the lake. As you can see, my romantic experience with nature ended here. Tourists flooded off boats like the Normandy invasion, marching along the single trail to the ruins in singe file. From the top of a nearby rock outcropping you could see them winding their way across the hillside like ants raiding a picnic.


I hung around until the tour guide shooed his charges back to the port to catch their afternoon boat back to Copacabana. Here’s a view from the farthest edge of the ruins looking out towards Peru.


The high road back to my hotel was a much harder hike than the morning. Every time I told myself I would rest when I got to the top of a hill I just saw another one looming ahead. Even after a month here at high altitude I still get winded easily. To rub it in, a local jogged past me to catch up with some of his friends further up the trail. The high road is much sparser than the low one. Occasionally I found an abandoned hut like this one looking east to the mountains.

It took me six hours to hike the whole loop. After settling in with a warm bowl of quinoa vegetable soup I looked over the water and relished the ache from a long day’s walk.

Hasta pronto,

-Zach

Last weekend I went out to the Isla del Sol on the Bolivian coast of Lake Titicaca. The catamaran shaped island is easily one of the most beautiful places I’ve been—something like an Aegean isle with the Rocky Mountains in the background—but I’m getting ahead of myself.

I left Friday morning early for the cemetery to catch a bus out to Copacabana. The cemetery was disappointingly empty of ballon-filled taxis but replete with cheap tour buses out the Lake. I got a seat on a tour bus for 15 bolivianos, about US $2. And we were off, until we got to the highway.

Just outside El Alto, at the first toll, we ran into a road block. I’ve mentioned road blocks in this blog before but I’ve never been at the mercy of one before. Our tour bus followed the trickle of traffic off the highway onto a farm access road. We started on a dirt road that turned into a dirt path that turned into a fallow field that turned into a dry creek bed. Everyone was asked to exit the bus during the roughest part of the trek but since I was at the back by the time I reached the exit the bus started moving again. A grandma, two small kids, three French tourists and I enjoyed the off road experience from our seats. About 45 minutes later we finally made it back to the highway. While I was willing to take a hit to our schedule I was worried that we would pop a tire out there in the middle of potato country.



Three hours, one ferry and a boat ride later I made it to Isla del Sol. Above you can barely make out the Andes in the background but they were impossible to miss on the eastern side of the island. The beauty of the island was only interrupted by the braying of donkeys. There are no cars or large roads on the island and donkeys are the only way to move people or goods any distance. After the constant traffic and smog outside my window from the Ave. Arce in Sopocachi, this was just what I needed. I checked into my hotel and took a hike out to the southern tip of the island before the sun set.


The island only has a handful of paths that lead from the southern tip up to the northern Tiwanacoto ruins. I found this lookout on the other side of a fragrant eucalyptus grove.



Before I headed back to the hotel I caught this closeup of the Andes at sunset. Isla del Sol was the kind of place where you kept taking pictures of the same thing over and over trying to capture something that was always just outside the frame.

Hasta pronto,

-Zach

When I woke up the morning after the soccer match it snowed! The cordillera was covered in snow all around the valley. Despite the snow it was sunny so I decided to head out to a nearby archeological site called Tiwanaku.

I grabbed a minibus up to the cemetery and from there another minibus out to Tiwankau. There is, ironically, a lot of life going on around the walls of the sprawling cemetery. Cholitas sat overlooking their blankets all along the periphery of the cemetery selling fruits, vegetables, LOTS of potatoes, and odd meats (where do you by your tripe?). Taxis crawled through the heavy traffic with huge bunches of balloons filling the back seat and spilling over on to the top of the car like sea anemones. My bus driver mentioned that there was going to be a fiesta up in El Alto. I managed to snap a photo of this parade vehicle before we set out for the altiplano.



Once we got out on the altiplano the view was amazing. Huge mountains rose out of the plains’ ethereal pale yellow-green grass covered with the night’s snowfall. Along the way we picked up a hand full of passengers. Where they came from out there in the vast emptiness of the altiplano still makes me wonder. After about an hour and a half I arrived at the town of Tiwanaku.



Tiwanaku was a pre-Incan civilization that once controlled territory reaching from southern Peru down through Bolivia and northern Chile. Like so many others, the civilization suddenly vanished. Some believe that an extended drought made the site inhospitable and ruined crops. The whole story reminded me of Cahokia Mounds outside my hometown St. Louis. If you’ve never been and powerful disappearing civilizations are your thing, I recommend it (it’s much bigger than Tiwanaku too).



The view here shows the temple of the Incan cross. The great cross laid into the top of the temple was one of the many calendars the people of Tiwanaku used to tell the seasons. Supposedly, the cross was laid into the ground and filled with water. Reflections off the water marked the seasons. The Spanish, mad for riches, went through much of the complex and broke open many of the stones and dug up the entire cross convinced that there was gold hidden inside them.



The previous temple of the cross represented the heavens. Above you can see the subterranean temple representing the underworld with the temple representing this world rising above it. If I remember right, the sun comes through that doorway just right on the equinox.



Inside the temple of the underworld there were various heads representing priests, lords and even sacred animals like the puma and fish.



Here’s another of the monoliths uncovered several meters below the surface. One of the largest was 20 tons and nearly 8 meters high. Originally moved to La Paz the monolith was damaged by pollution, pigeons, and even gunfire from the 1952 revolution. Today it stands in a dark museum just off the archeological site.

On the way back we ran into the fiesta in El Alto I heard about earlier that day. The parade seemed to stretch on for miles. The same pattern of sousaphone players, twirling cholitas in matching bowler hats and brightly colored shawls, and men in suits with ties matching the shawls repeated as far as I could see. The closed road meant I had to take two more buses to get back home. All in all, I think I spent twice as much time traveling Sunday than I did enjoying the ruins but the adventure was worth it.

Hasta pronto,

-Zach

Last Friday was the first game of the Copa America 2011 (http://www.ca2011.com/) where Argentina and Bolivia faced off. Coca-Cola has taken over the Plaza de Estudiantes outside my window, replete with giant inflatable Coke bottles and soccer balls with a huge projector to show the game. The weather took a cold, wet turn here in La Paz but that wasn’t enough to keep the paceños from watching their team. Argentina was the favorite and there’s a strong rivalry between the two teams. Like Adriana says, “soccer is politics.”



I made it through the first half until the cold and light drizzle drove me back to the comfort of my bedroom. The score was 0-0. Not 15 minuets later I hear a tremendous roar come up from the plaza: Bolivia scored the first goal of the game. All that time out in the cold and I miss the best part! Argentina ended up tying the game 1-1 but even the tie was enough for the paceños to celebrate. Through the rain and cold I could hear people an hour after the game still chanting “Bo Bo Bo, Li Li Li, Via Via Via” with an accompaniment of car horns.

Bolivia’s next game is scheduled for Thursday night against Costa Rica (but we all know who I’m pulling for in that game).

Hasta pronto,

-Zach

Today was the first time I got lost in La Paz. After a careful study of the Google map of Sopocachi I headed out my front gate and instantly realized I didn’t know where I was going. Street signs in La Paz are sophisticated, understated and notoriously absent. If you are lucky enough to wander into an intersection where you can actually find the small metal plaque with the serif lettered street name it’s inlaid 10 feet off the ground (something between cruel and jocular for a country with short inhabitants). The rest of the time there’s simply nothing there. I knew the first street I had to walk up; from there it was a roll of the dice.

As I climbed out of the central avenue’s hustle and bustle I quickly found myself in a pleasant residential neighborhood. The uphill trek had me winded in five minutes—was I really that out of breath? I followed the street further and further up always looking for my cross street and never finding it. Finally I found myself panting and at the end of the street. Dead end.

What I did find was a taxista working on his cab. When I asked if he knew the street I was looking for he turned to show me a kind face with a lazy eye. After telling me the directions three times and even drawing a crude map on the sidewalk we shook hands with a que-le-vaya-bien.

I finally found the think tank I was looking for but on the way I realized I had stumbled into a scenic view of the city and the valley’s moonscape.



Getting lost is all about confidence and nothing gives me more confidence in a new city than successfully riding public transportation. Yesterday I finally took a mini bus down to Obrajes toward the Zona Sur. The mini buses are small vans with three rows if seats and aggressive drivers. Young people hang out the side doors and yell the bus’ destinations. If you’re deaf (or a gringo that doesn’t know exactly where he needs to go) you can also read the signs stacked up over the passenger’s window.

While the ride was cramped and I was almost knocked off my feet by the lead-footed driver’s blast off from the curb, I was instantly in love. There’s something fraternal about public transportation as you zip and crawl though the arteries of the city because everyone uses the small vans and buses to get around. And for two bolivianos (less than 50 cents) there’s no cheaper or more exciting way to get around.

After my adventure on the mini bus I was in the right frame of mind to get lost this afternoon.

Hasta pronto,

-Zach

Today was the first justifiably warm day so I took to the streets to see some of La Paz’s sites (outside Sopocachi for once). La Paz is actually a very easy city to navigate. Essentially, if you’re walking uphill you’re going north (arriba) or if you’re walking downhill you’re probably heading south (abajo). This picture above is a view from a pedestrian bridge overlooking Plaza San Francisco (unfortunately under heavy construction) and La Paz’s central artery, Ave. Montes. It’s name changes several times but it’s always the same corridor.

You might not be able to see them well, but the hills sides around La Paz are blanketed in ochre colored brick buildings. I always think they make the hillsides look pixilated as their square shapes trace the curve of the hill.






Not far from the pedestrian bridge is Plaza Murillo where the Cathedral and seat of government is. The quaint plaza is overrun with pigeons. There are so many of them that their collective cooing sounds like a heart beat pulsing all over the plaza! The plaza has a bloody history though. Two former presidents, including the plaza’s namesake, were hung here.






At the far end of the plaza is the Presidential Palace.






I thought the cholita on the palace steps well illustrated the strides Bolivia’s indigenous peoples have made politically in the last several years.






Down the street from the Plaza Murillo is Calle Jaén. While the small alley looks like it belongs in a Latino Charleston it actually was rumored to be one of the most haunted places in the city. Today it’s home to Internet cafes, a hotel and several museums. The previously mentioned President Murillo also had a house on this street.






There are many stories about Calle Jaén but the most well known (according to this plaque ;-) is about the ghost of a widow that seduces drunk men and takes them on a “mysterious adventure.” I’ve heard similar stories of ghosts that attack wayward husbands across Latin America including the “Segua” in Costa Rica (

http://www.infocostarica.com/culture/legends.html). The alley’s inhabitants placed this green cross here at the entrance of the street to help ward off the supernatural pests.




Finally, here’s a view of Mount Illimani peeking through the buildings around the Monument to the Unknown Soldier. The mountain is one of two that overlook La Paz but the city’s buildings often obscure the majestic view.

Hasta pronto,

-Zach