Journey to the Andes: I never thought I'd help sacrifice a llama...

Sunday, June 04, 2006

I never thought I'd help sacrifice a llama...

But the next thing I knew, I was holding a bloody severed llama penis. The old woman who had handed it to me laughed. I dropped the penis.

In case you are wondering why this happened, I did a mine tour yesterday. There weren't actually any miners in the mines, since it was a special festival where the miners sacrifice llamas as a gift to pachamama (mother earth). So me and two french dudes who I did the tour with ended up drinking beer and cutting up llamas with miners and their families. I got to hold a llama leg while they skinned it. They take the internal organs of the llamas, plus it's feet and head, and put it on a wheelbarrow and take it into the mine and leave it to pachamama, and they take the rest of the meet and have a big awesome barbeque at night. A llama costs about 400 bolivianos, and since the miners have to buy them themselves, the week beforehand they do double or triple shifts in the mines in order to save up enough money for the festival. The dude from the tour company that took us up there used to work in the mines. He worked there for 3 years. He started when he was 12 years old.

Met an Argentinean on the street last night...he introduced me to some of his friends and we ended up going to a karaoke bar until 4 in the morning. I sung a Gun's N Roses song that I had never heard before. On the list they SAID it was 'Welcome to the Jungle' but it turned out to be some song with the lyrics 'You could be miiiiine!' The bolivians gave me the heavy metal salute when I finished. It was awesome.

So, Im going to do another mine tour on Monday or Tuesday so I can actually see some miners working. They seem like really nice people, I enjoyed spending time with them yesterday.

There's a big weekend market in Potosi that's really neat too, and I've spent several hours wandering around there! Nowhere near as cool as the El Alto market though...that's uncontested. It's damn cold here in Potosi as well, like between-fall-and-winter weather in Canada. It kind of sucks.

Off to Topiza in a few days. Should be neat. Ciao pajeros.

posted by Ben @ 12:30 PM

2 Comments:

At 2:17 AM, Anonymous said…

Holding a llama penis and singing in a karaoke bar? Sounds just like you! I am so proud of you! All Bolivian pubs need a Ben show. I just wish I could have been there to watch it. Sounds like a great evening. Anne
At 3:27 PM, Anonymous said…

who ate the llama penis?