Posts Tagged ‘Markets’
• Bolivia
“A la esquina por favor!” – and immediately the bus comes to a sudden halt: the passenger dangling off of the bus briskly steps onto the street as an influx of new passengers flood the micro. As I was venturing through the narrow streets experiencing travel like a true Cochabambino, I felt like a child whose face was plastered to the window of Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory…if only it had a window…
The 3v micro is the cheapest bus you can take in all of Cochabamba, which means that my roommate Chelsea and I got a 2 ½ hour tour of the city for 1 Boliviano each – or about 14 cents. We drive by Plaza Colon, home to two of Cochabamba’s most popular snack shops – Globos and Dumbo’s (and yes, Dumbo’s logo is an elephant with abnormally large ears…). We drive by the Plaza de 14 de septiembre, which is a one of Cochabamba’s markets: a labyrinth of little stalls selling everything from cloth purses to electronic equipment to tasty sweets. We see fountains in city squares, cholas selling juice of every type of tropical fruit, infants wrapped up in hand-woven, vividly colorful blankets on the backs of their mothers, children hopping on the micro to sell fresh caramel treats or popcorn made from kernels that are 5 times bigger than those back home, stalls with hundreds of stuffed animals hanging from makeshift tarp ceilings, fruits stacked to look like little edible Eiffel Towers, shoes of every style, shape and size, and tiny frying pans making papas fritas (French fries), plantanos (plantains), and frying dozens of other types of meat. We get stuck in deadlock traffic for 17 minutes, we pass by pharmacies with bags of diapers hanging from their shop’s overhang, stalls of hundreds of bedazzled cell-phone covers, school notebooks, and apparel that looks like it’s from the movie Flashdance or Girls Just Want to Have Fun, hundreds of Taquina logos (a natively brewed beer), fresh empanadas, pastries and cakes embellished with colorful frosting and toppings looking like creations made by all the Food Network cake decorators together, fresh vegetables – smaller than our ridiculously large American counterparts, but are without a doubt significantly more flavorful and juicy, and this was only in the first 45 minutes!
My senses were challenged to multitask in ways that I could have never foreseen, and I had quickly forgotten that the initial intention of taking the micro was to eventually return to our humble abode. After an hour on this carousel around the city, my face and camera lens still stuck to the window by my seat, I turn to find that a small child had magically materialized onto my lap. In my attempts to catch everything we drove by, I failed to realize that the micro was now packed fuller than a suitcase you need to jump on to close. A man and his toddler had just gotten on the micro. The old lady who was sitting next to me took it upon herself to find this toddler a place to call home for this bus ride and ended up choosing my lap as her solution. So I was holding this stranger’s plump little child, wearing this soft wool hat, carrying a small bag of freshly popped popcorn, pointing out the window saying “Yola! Yola!” every couple seconds. When we had gotten on, we asked the bus driver if it goes to the stadium, and he responded that the bus goes “everywhere!” Well…it certainly did.
Suddenly, the bus started to empty out and finally stopped in this abandoned, dirt parking lot. The route was over – but we were still on the bus. Okay…so what now? After clarifying yet again that we had wanted to go to the stadium, the driver motioned to another bus that was about to leave into the city. As we were heading back into the city, the route didn’t overlap with anything we had driven by the first time. It drove through La Cancha: the biggest market in South America – this was yet another test of my senses. I counted 22 different smells just within a span of about 2 minutes! After many more twisty roads and one-way cobble stone streets, we finally reached the stadium, from where we could walk back home – but were now equipped with a significantly greater understanding and appreciation for the city and people of Cochabamba.
I had the unbelievable pleasure of getting onto a micro headed in the completely opposite direction: how lucky…
It was the best of times… and yup, that about sums it up. Am I missing something?
I recently spent time in two great European capitals, Paris and London, and have come to this conclusion: I am going to live in both of them… eventually… when I am filthy stinking rich. After spending a week in Paris and a week and a half in London, I felt as though I had just started to see the city. Therefore, residence is the only option. The two cities are so interesting, so different, and my visits to each of them really reflect that. Paris instills me with feelings of peace and wonder. I remember it fondly with afternoons spent laughing over cups of coffee in chic cafés and long quiet walks through neighborhoods that look they come from 100-year-old impressionist paintings. On the other hand we have London. I remember a bustling city, markets with vendors advertising their wears, and bars crowded with students taking advantage of 1.25£ pint night. This is an account of two great cities through stories, memories and places.
For me, Paris has become an embodiment of all things magical and beautiful about France. I have heard that it is not really France, that it is an anomaly of the culture and the country. I have heard tourist horror stories and lists of complaints, but I plan on keeping my rose-colored glasses on. My Paris isn’t perfect, but it will always be beautiful. My Paris is complex and interesting and unexpected. I know it by its monuments; from museums to churches to cemeteries, everything has a story.
The first thing I noticed about the city was the pace. People walk quickly, briskly one may say, as if they always have somewhere to go; yet my visit quickly resumed a simple pace. Get up every morning at ten, eat a breakfast of tea and croissants. Shower, leave at around twelve and go see something. Later in the afternoon, we grab a coffee, and head to a museum. Head back to the apartment at about 7 and eat dinner. Later that night, we would watch a movie, or get a drink, then head home and go to sleep. My days breezed past as I wondered around Paris, seeing sight after sight. Even on my second visit, I still had many monuments to check off the list.
On Saturday, I went to the Père Lachaise Cemetery, where icons like Molière, Jim Morrison and Chopin are buried. I spent a good hour wandering about the massive, 120 acre site, looking at crypts and tombstones, each one so different from the next. I found the grave of Oscar Wilde, and was a bit taken back. The large concrete block has a winged figure carved into the side, and his names engraved in a simple font. The grave is covered in hundreds of colorful kisses, flowers and notes of love. From there, I moved on to Colette, Edit Piaf and Marcel Proust, to name a few. The next day, I visited the Louvre. They say everything is bigger in Texas, but visits like these, to old, grand, historic places, make me feel like Europeans are big, ole hypocrites. Everything about the Louvre screams big! A museum with 35,000 pieces of art? No big deal. With paintings over five times as big as me, and a circulation of nine million people a year, there is nothing small about this place. You could spend hours, days wandering through the galleries and appreciating room after room of precious artwork. But after a few hours, I was exhausted and overwhelmed, and decided to get my afternoon cup of tea.
The rest of the week was filled with l’Arc de Triomphe, the Eiffel Tower, les Halles, Notre Dame, les Invalides, l’Hôtel de Ville and the Montparnasse Cemetery. But my favorite memory by far was my visit to the Pompidou Center. I went by myself, the last night of my visit. I was a bit hurried, arriving at 7:45, when the museum closed at 8:50. The building is so odd and out of place, an amalgamation of multicolored pipes, about a five minutes walk from Notre Dame. The Center is a combination of a library, a music center and Europe’s largest modern art museum, which is located on the upper levels of the building. I arrived, quickly bought a ticket, and found the escalator to the galleries. What they don’t always tell you, a very important fact, is that with the central location of the building, and its great height, the Centre Pompidou offers one of the best views of the city. Luckily, the architects were clever enough to put the escalators on the sides of the building, covered by large glass tubes, allowing the amazing city view to be observed by all museum-goers. And luckily for me, I arrived to the 5th floor just in time to observe the Eiffel Tower, exploding into a serenade of lights as it does every night, and the view took my breath away. For the next five minutes I stood there, frozen, taking in the view, waiting for the light show to end, and reveling in my little discovery. L’Arc de Triomphe, Notre Dame, l’Hôtel de Ville and Sacre Coeur were all laid out in front of me, a picturesque summary of the past week and of my past trips. Soon enough, the lights on the Tower flickered off, and I left to enjoy some modern art.
My time in Paris was like a dream: glamorous, relaxing, cultured, and I was ready to get to London and see what it had to offer. Being in London was like being in a parallel universe of the States. Here I was, back again in an Anglophone country, but things were – different. When I landed in Stanstead, a small city forty-five minutes out of London, I was exhausted and stressed. I knew it was going to be another hour, at least, until I could meet up with my friends and find a place to stay. I found the bus that would take me to the city, and boarded, taking one of the last available seats. It was only until about twenty minutes into the journey that I took time to observe my surroundings, and it was only then that I realized that we were on the left side of the road! For the rest of the trip, I tried to keep it in mind, but even the memory of those first ten minutes didn’t stop me from almost getting run over a few times in the city for looking the wrong way.
Some of the first memories I have were from the bus ride in, as I gazed out the window. This was my first time in England, and as a self-proclaimed Francophile, I had never made much of an effort to learn about London. I was visiting with a blank slate, a fresh page, so to speak, and it was quite interesting to build my impressions from scratch. I had of course asked my trendy London friend, Ned, for guidance, and so for the rest of the week I wandered around the city, with an unlimited travel card in one hand, and a list of his recommendations in the other. With each place checked off the list, I grew fonder and fonder of this Bizarro World. After seven days I had passed, I managed to visit every place recommended by Ned, and a few others on top of that.
By far, my favorite places were the markets. Each has their own distinct character, but they are all absolutely delightful. First, I did the South Bank Walk, working my way from west to east, ending at the Borough Market. Several stalls, covered by bright red canopies, where vendors were offering samples to passerbys, greeted me. There were all sorts of food: buckets of pickled olives, cheeses from every corner of the world, pestos, dried meats, cookies, cakes and pies. My mouth watered with everything I saw, as I was offered curries, brownies, and apple slices to try. I settled on buying an almond pastry, and inhaled it as I explored the sprawling market. And I was only at the entrance. I followed the crowd, through a tunnel, and found another square, and another one beyond that. I spent a good two hours there, circling the grounds, and taking in the liveliness and excitement of the place. The next day I headed over to Camden Town. On the tube, I wondered what I would find, and I was not disappointed. As soon as I stepped out of the station, I knew I had come to the right place. Crowds and crowds of people walked past the colorful and eclectic buildings that lined the streets. Shop after shop sold jewelry, tee shirts and souvenirs. I continued down the way to find blocks of stands and stalls. There were so many choices to takes in, markets upon market. I found a food area, comfortably located on a little river, and bought some bite-size samosas, and munched on them as I explored some more. I also visited Notting Hill, Shoreditch, Oxford Circus and Russell Square. I visited Hyde Park, Hampstead Heath, Buckingham Palace, the London Bridge, the London Towers, and Platform 9 ¾. I was a super-traveler. Neither wind nor rain could stop me; I was on a mission. I ran all over London, and even traveled to Oxford for a few days. But after almost two weeks in England, I was exhausted and very ready to return home, to small, quiet Strasbourg.
Great article!
