The next day Aldé began the morning tightening his chain because it had fallen off twice on the way out there the night before. While attempting to tighten the chain we found there to be a problem with the chain. It had links that were torqued. We decided to change the chain. I headed into town and picked up three original chains (one as a replacement part for me, one to replace the torqued chain on Aldé's bike, and one to be a replacement chain for Aldé), a replacement gear shift, and three replacement "chain adjusting screws." I don't know what they are called in English, but they are small washers with a screw threading that fit over the axle bolt of the back wheel used to adjust the tightness of the chain. One of my "chain adjusting screws" had broke because I tried to tighten my chain with out loosening the bolt for the rear axle first.

The chain I picked up for Aldé was way too long. We attempted to take out a link ourselves but failed. So we headed back into town and found a shop that would do it for us. They took out four links. We got back to Aldé's bike only to discover that we didn't calculate right, and we needed to take out two more links.

We slept and went in the next day and found a mechanic that took out two more links for us, not an easy task it being Sunday. We got back to camp put the chain on only to discover that the sprocket was bent and making the chain hit the welded-on screw that the chain guard attaches to. That was probably why the other chain was torqued. So we took the broken "chain adjusting screw" from my bike and slipped it over the rear axle bolt so that it was situated on the inside of the frame. That moved the sprocket slightly away from the bothersome screw. However, it was still hitting every other revolution, but just on the removable link, so we took that out and put it in the other way so that the bulging removable part was facing outward and bam, we had a jerry-rigged transmission chain system that was working. The replacement sprockets that we got at the Honda dealership were the wrong size. And for that reason we couldn't just put on a new sprocket. In fact, we gave it to the mechanic that helped us as a gift. He then bought us dinner and we chilled with them for a minute.

With Aldé's bike up and running we took off to La Paz where I am writing this from. A huge city built on a mountainside. The trek in was a definitive test of our driving skills. The bikes were of course fully loaded down. La Paz's steep hills combined with the altitude required us to run start from a dead stop to keep from stalling out. And then there is the "Pandemonium," which is the word that best describes the streets of La Paz, which we had to navigate. I love it.

06-20-04

Our trip has taken us through an interesting path. We chilled out in La Paz for four or five days. While there, we were walking down the hill (all of La Paz is one big hill and infallibly all directions we have received from people have been given as a relative ascension or descent) toward la plaza San Francisco when we came across a huge march. I immediately began to ask the purpose of the march and who were the participants. After obtaining the info that this march was a combined march of many different working groups in Bolivia and that is was calling for a nationalization of the gas and an increase of salaries to a more living wage, we joined the march and marched with the people until the end. Millions of workers were courageously demanding a change in the social system. It finished in the plaza San Francisco and Split off into many little discussion groups. We listen in on quite a few of them. It was an invigorating think-tank of ideas, of fiery discussion and debate. A social phenomenon I was honored to be a part of, if only for a few days. We have both thought of making our way back to La Paz sometime in the future, Aldé and I.

After hearing out four or five different discussion groups the impromptu meetings started to dissipate. There was one large circle left that had formed as a shoot off from the other groups. We joined that one. At one point I asked a question. I was then asked where I was from. I told them the US, a response often that is met with an unpredictable reaction. I told them we are activists from the US, and traveling around Latin America to learn from and understand the social movements. They were very impressed. I described to them a bit about the struggle in the US and the fight by colonized people and white progressives against the current system. I was hit with question after question concerning everything from if there are indeed US military troops in Bolivia to if there are any indigenous people left in North America.

The crowd around me and Aldé began to grow as I spoke. I berated the US government's colonial wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the domination of Bolivian gas by imperialists, and raised up the people's right to organize, struggle, and defend themselves.

We ended up participating in two marches before we finally were able to set up a meeting place with Ingrid in Puno, Peru. We took off in the face of reports of road blockades. We had no trouble what-so-ever, a few rocks in the road nothing more. We arrived in Puno, got a hostel and headed over to the bus terminal to pick up Ingrid at midnight. The bus did not come. We waited until 2 am and then went back to get some sleep. The next day I got up and went to the cyber café at 8am. I read the last email she had sent me and went to her hostel. I found her sick, with puffy eyes and throwing up. I went out got some yogurt and Aldé and I brought the laptop over to watch a movie or two with her. It was wonderful to see my sister again. It had been years since we had seen each other. And we had a good couple months ahead of us to hang out and travel.

While in Puno we visited the Uro floating islands, an indigenous people that secluded themselves on floating islands made from Tortora (an aquatic reed that naturally grows in Lake Titicaca) from the Incas. The tour that we took was saddening, enraging, and odd. One, we were touring a people's way of living that was meant to be a defense. Two, the fact that these people now had to beg rich tourists to buy little trinkets made to attempt to self subsist was appalling. It made me wonder where the money from the tours went, obviously not to these people. Three, that was my first tour since coming to South America and I did not like it. Not a big surprise.