We spent a week in and around the tiny town of Samaipata in order to relax after the eventful bus ride that had dropped us here and to follow the Ruta del Che, which would take us to the most significant places that saw Che Guevara in 1967.
Samaipata was a welcome change with its lush green hills after the rather barren landscapes of the altiplano, and with its very laid back village-life after the hectic streets of Sucre. Life is good and time goes slow in Samaipata. Crime and violence haven't really reached this part of Bolivia - apart from a fight between two expat Germans a couple of years ago, which left one of them with a bullet hole in his bottom. We had lunch at his restaurant one day, unfortunately we only found out about his bottom afterwards...
We spent a fair bit of time at the animal refuge just a short walk out of town, where all sorts of furry and un-furry creatures have found a new home and mostly roam free. Apart from some curious turtles, the monkeys were definitely our favourites and they seemed to return the love.
Samaipata is not on the typical gringo-trail and gets mainly visited by socialists with beards and an interest in history. Due to the lack of fellow travellers, we ended up befriending a taxi driver who took us on a little drive and bushwalk to the Laguna Volcan: A beautiful lake surrounded by mountains which you can access by walking over the stunning golf course of a 5-star hotel. Bolivia again surprised us!
We followed the Ruta del Che with Napo but I leave this story up to the bearded socialist. A warning: Rich might have had a rum too many for this and doesn´t remember much...
THE OTHER SIDE OF THE STORY
This story is, paradoxically, about Che Guevara and a masturbating spider monkey: called Simón. How they are relevant towards one and other, I don't know yet. I suppose, I should write an educational prelude, about Ché and his plight to bring you ugly beasts up to speed and then slam it sideways, drop the punch line and reveal: There is in fact no masturbating monkey but just lonely, heinous analogy of a ranting Fidel Castro. No. I'm not going to do it, even though the urge to is clawing a hole in my chest. A story like Ché and Simón's has to be told bullet fast with passion. Otherwise the mystique and relevance, of both, may be lost in the text.
Our hunger for socialism led us to La Higuera, high in the Bolivian mountains, to visit the site where Ché Guevara met his fantastically bloody end at the hands of a vial, puppet tyrant. Our guide, Napo, was a beautiful man. Not just aesthetically, but beautiful in the way he cared for our poor Spanish. He had to ... He was well aware, as were we, that our journey took two full days in a tiny 4x4, and that any breakdown in communication could potentially have a grim outcome.
As mentioned Ché was assassinated in the tiny village of La Higuera, home to the usual cross-section of life: a small number of Bolivians, an assortment of various pack animals and dirty hippies. All looking rather bored. The hut, in which Ché was slaughtered in, had been pulled down and a modest museum erected in its place - displaying various Ché paraphernalia.
Our accommodation for the night was highly recommended by a Texan in Samaipata. Run by two 60-something French ex-heroin addicts who fled France a few years ago because the price of heroin was too steep and they could no longer smoke in restaurants. Well, they found their nirvana high in the hills of Bolivia where they could do both unchallenged. The man looked like a cross between the Count of Monte Cristo and Willy Nelson, well spoken, suave and calm which was surprising because the woman had the disposition of a wet Persian cat being continuously startled by firecrackers. I suspected she was in the early stages of withdrawal - forced withdrawal I thought, because the local product was just not as good as the Parisian brown sugar. Her chain-smoking while chewing a fist-size mound of coca leaves told me that it was only a matter of time before she would resort to more disturbing means of killing the dependent beast.
Later that night all the dirty hippies, from the village, walked through the front door of the bar because the heroin junkies ran their generators past 9pm - providing the only light in the village. I couldn't help but stare at these wondering monstrosities. Man I hate dreadlocks. A vulgar attempt at individuality by either: personality oppressed teens or personality void adults. Either way, by design it’s the most prominent thing I see and it speaks more about you than your mouth ever will. Within moments, everyone (except Charly, Napo and myself) started to chain smoke in unison. The saturated Persian cat seemed to be encouraged by the festiveness of communal hypoxia and accelerated her consumption of stimulants. (Progressive anti-smoking laws had not reached La Higuera. If there will ever be a lobby for it, I will fervently support it.) I retreated to bed - to fresh air. Until that night, I had never heard the sound of mortal combat between a pig and dog. Terrifying sounds of growling and screeching tore out of the darkness. . . I'll never know who won.
Yesterday we had first visited the place where Che´s bones were found in 1997,...
...then the laundry where his body was spread out in Vallegrande,...
...to then drive to La Higuera where he was shot in a school.
The next morning, we woke early to visit the site of where Ché was captured. A weird, chronologically backwards tour of events in the life of Ché.
Soon we'll reach the site of conception of Ernesto Guevara, I joked. "Siiiiiiii", Napo squealed. Charly didn't laugh. Breakfast was served right on time. Amazing, I though...considering. Suddenly, the wet Persian cat blasted through the bamboo-bead curtain, right next to me, prancing sideways carrying Charly's breakfast. "Jesus Christ!", I blurted. I wasn't prepared for her presence. She looked like she had been awake since last Tuesday and I thought there would have been a cold chance in hell that she survived the night, but then I realized. . . She's figures it out. . . Immortality. . . to a certain extent. A person like that will never die memorably in a bar fight or a flaming wreckage or even suffer from a rare leukemia. No. She dotted her "i's" and crossed her 't's" when it came to personal abuse - Reaching a new level of efficiency in self damage. Her real danger was dying, peacefully, in her sleep. Prompting a plan to stay awake indefinitely. Which explains the unilateral ingestion of varying stimulants. "Genius," I thought.
Back in Samaipata, coming down from our recent brush with history, we decided to go to the local animal refuge: caring for varying types of monkeys, donkeys and turtles.
Arriving in the refuge we were met by six barking dogs - one of which was a gigantic St Bernard, utterly confused about the drama but still barking in all directions. I was armed with a rock. . . and was goddamn ready to throw it, when we heard someone whistling for the dogs - Hippies, volunteering. At odds with my judgement because these were pro-active hippies-type. Not like the meandering type we had met in La Higuera. Yes, these people had dreadlocks but at least they were living the true hippie doctrine. I reserved my judgement and complemented one of them for their noble sacrifice.
Together, wandering around, were a horse and a donkey - minding their own business. I was slightly agitated by their normality, because these animals had hooves and we came to see hairy thumbs! We could hear the indiscriminate screeches of monkeys in the middle of the park. We had already heard the legend of Simón, a black spider monkey whose temperament varied from sleepy to psychopathic. With caution we followed our ears to the center of the park. In an enclosure, the size of a two-story building, roughly twelve capuchin monkeys ran riot. An insane asylum, where the guards had either been killed or extorted into passiveness. Flashing around this mad-house, screaming his lungs out, was Elvis: the oldest male capuchin monkey in the cage which looked like The King (not at the end). He was an intensely paranoid character, feeling the need to continuously stamp his dominance on the population. The little bastard even had a swipe at my beard through the fence.
I lost Charly and fearing the worst, I went looking. I found Charly sitting on a swing cuddling one of the monkeys whose name was Miel (Honey). An incredibly placid creature who just wanted to be warm and sleep: she found both, buried deep in Charly's belly - underneath her shirt.
I sat down next to them on the other swing, considering the possibility that Miel had been somehow sedated, when out of the corner of my eye I glimpsed a black humanoid figure moving behind some short bushes. "What the hell was that," I sneezed. "What was what?" Charly replied - completely engrossed with Miel. In a break in the bushes, I saw what looked like a bigger than usual black cat walking on its hind legs. "Sweet Jesus," I thought. I've seen this kind of stuff on the X-files. From behind the final bush, appeared the menacing form of Simón: picking his nose. He was walking like an inmate who had just discovered that he was getting the electric chair (for something he definitely), scanning the yard, looking to settle the score with something. I found this terribly unsettling: a skinny, furry, up-right WALKING animal, roaming around with no rules. If it came down to it and things went sideways, would I be able to reason with this beast? Probably not, I thought. He was the king pin around these parts. Top dog. His turf. Not be messed with. From the swing, I tracked his movements intensely. What would his reaction be when he realized that Charly was giving Miel temporary asylum? Violence I predicted, the type that pays little regard to the conventions of gentlemen. While watching him, an Oprah Winfrey story came flashing back where a "tame" chimpanzee went on a jealous rampage after meeting his handler’s new boyfriend. Viciously tearing off the intruder’s genitals and nose. Such precise targets made me think we have grossly underestimated these throwbacks.
Simón let out two loud screeches, then looked exactly in our direction. Jesus Christ! He's on to us! Charly we have to flee at once!!!
Like most intraspecies based discrimination, once the misconceptions were explained, we began to bond.
Planet of the Apes from Charly and Rich on Vimeo.
The next day was raining and cold so we decided to go back to the animal refuge. On arriving, there was little commotion - no barking dogs or wandering animals of any sort. We went further in to see the huge monkey cage to find them all huddled in one corner - retreating from the cold and rain. I wondered where Simón was and thus went searching. I walked through a archway, covered in dark-green vines, sprouting pretty small purple flowers, where I found Simón - spread out like he was skydiving but asleep, on top of the St Bernard dog. I tried to rouse him for my own gratification, and he gave me the same look I gave my mum every morning for 15 years. He then rolled over, covered himself (like a blanket) with one of the large skin flaps of the gigantic St Bernard.
Charly and I wondered around for twenty minutes looking for a monkey to play with. The only active animal in the yard was a tropical pig which wanted attention, but his heinous ordure kept my hand in my face and my foot in his. Something startled the dogs and as a pack they ran off into the adjacent yard. I thought, ah ha! Simón has to be awake now. I went back to where I had last seen Simón. Again, walking through the pleasant vine covered archway, this time, to be confronted by Simón, facing away from me, masturbating - like some kind of crack fiend on the lower levels of a dark car park. He kept looking over his shoulder at me, not creepily but rather looking out for predators. Is this what scared the dogs away? I didn't know for sure but the St Bernard was running with defined intention, seemingly leading the pack away from danger.
If I was more clever, I would be able to make the correlation between a masturbating monkey and the failed adventures of brother Ché Guevara, but I can't because everybody knows that one is monkey and the other is a guerrilla. Arf arf. In reality, Samaipata was a tiny-unremarkable village and these two events stood out in my mind.