Bolivia (La Paz) (August 12, 2004 to August 17, 2004)

I am now visiting La Paz, Bolivia. The city is on the edge of the altiplano, starting on the plain at 13000 feet and running down through a connected series of valleys. The result is amazing beauty. Traveling between neighborhoods often means seeing marvelous vistas. The snow-capped mountain Illimani can also be seen from much of the city.

La Paz in Bolivia

I’m staying in the house of the free software supporter who arranged my speech here. It is on the southern and lower side of the city, in the neighborhood called “Amor de Dios”. As an Atheist, I do not like the name very much, but the beauty is amazing. The neighborhood is situated in a valley perhaps 1000 feet across, between a small river and a fairly steep ridge. The ridge runs up from the wall of this house. Three long streets run parallel to the river. On the other side of the river there is a narrow park and a craggy red cliff. The river was panned for gold hundreds of years ago, and the ridge is said to have some too, but apparently not worth mining.

Today we took a walk up a stairway to a path that goes along the ridge for the length of the neighborhood. The views along the path are marvelous and sooner or later I will get the photos onto stallman.org. We also climbed another stairway to a peak on the ridge, perhaps 50 feet further up, which led to a wood-and-rope bridge that I would not have wanted to cross even if it were in good condition. That stairway was not in good condition either, and about 10 feet of it was so sloping that I was scared to climb down it, scared of falling and once again breaking an elbow or something else. My friends used a large stick to hollow out horizontal places to step, and then with help I was able to climb down. Then they joked that the city ought to pay them for the maintenance work.

The audience for my speech yesterday was disappointingly small; I am told that the students who were supposed to put up posters had a dispute with the director of the computer science department, and went on strike by not putting up the posters. How self-defeating. The other main speaker had been called away on work just a few days before, but he wrote down his speech and it was read for him.

Bolivia is land-locked, so when I said that piracy consists of attacking ships, not of sharing with your neighbor, I said that piracy isn’t a problem in Bolivia. Then I remembered that Bolivians still feel strongly about the outlet to the sea that Chile conquered in 1878. So I added, “at present”.

Bolivia is land-locked, so when I said that piracy consists of attacking ships, not of sharing with your neighbor, I said that piracy isn’t a problem in Bolivia. Then I remembered that Bolivians still feel strongly about the outlet to the sea that Chile conquered in 1878. So I added, “at present”

Despite the low turnout, the speech has had some good results already. People from the Ministry of Education attended, and have invited me to speak at the ministry on Monday. They are already starting projects to use free software in the schools, and I hope to introduce them to people in Argentina, Brazil and Spain that can give help and advice.

On my next-to-last day in La Paz, I went to see the ancient ruins of Tiwanaku, and Lake Titicaca. My hosts and I hired a taxi for the whole day—it was the only way to go. When we got to Tiwanaku, we took a little too long eating lunch, which forced us to hurry a bit visiting the ruins and the museum.

However, I was glad to have that lunch, because I got to eat a soup with quinoa. Quinoa is a grain that was originally domesticated in the Andes, and I love it, and I had been surprised and a little disappointed not to find any. The reason turns out to be snobbishness: quinoa is considered “what the Indians eat”, so Hispanics generally won’t serve it. (How ironic that in the US you only encounter quinoa in fancy restaurants where the chefs invent new dishes all the time.) My hosts, who are great cooks, reject this snobbishness and often prepare and eat quinoa themselves, but they felt that it wouldn’t be right to make quinoa for a guest like me. So they made rice instead, which isn’t nearly as much fun. However, after I showed them how much I like quinoa, they decided to start. What they made that night, I loved so much that I couldn’t bear to stop eating it.

We reached Lake Titicaca just before nightfall. On the way back, we were at 4000 meters in a thinly populated area, and the stars were so beautiful that I looked at them for many minutes before pulling out my computer to start to answer mail.

On Monday, my last day in La Paz, I gave a brief speech at a university, where hundreds of students had come (no publicity foul-up like the previous time), then a meeting with the Ministry of Education, where the people said they needed to use free software more in the schools, but they could not find people from whom to obtain technical support. Apparently they have no awareness of the hundreds of enthusiastic students who had come to my talks in various cities, showing a vigorous community.

Peru (Lima and Arequipa) (August 17, 2004 to August 22, 2004)

After La Paz, I went to Peru. In Lima I gave three speeches at three universities on three consecutive days, which was rather exhausting since each made a big event of it. Then I went to Arequipa, an inland city to the south of Peru. After I gave a speech for the GNU/Linux User Group there, they took me to a bullfight.

This was not a Spanish-style bullfight where humans kill a bull. Instead, two bulls fight each other until one of them runs away. Neither the humans nor the bulls get hurt, at least not usually. Although I could see how one can find it exciting, contests don’t continue to fascinate me—and the delays between the matches are long. So after 4 matches I said “let’s go”. (We had to go home to get my things before we could head for the airport.) The photos from Arequipa are now here. The photos from Bolivia are here.

Just before leaving Lima I learned that the free software organization APESOL (“Asociación Peruana de Software Libre”) has set up a web site for people to record that they offer free software support services. If I can put the right people together, maybe something similar can be set up for Bolivia, and this might show the ministry what it needs to see.

Just before leaving Lima I learned that the free software organization APESOL (“Asociación Peruana de Software Libre”) has set up a web site for people to record that they offer free software support services

Home (August 23, 2004)

I have been home now for almost two weeks, which is a long time for me. During this time I’ve set up two sets of 8-foot book-cases, where the front set rotates out to provide access to the back set. This seems to be a solution for the tall space in my new office. On Thursday I am heading for Geneva where consumer organizations are having a meeting about how to deal with WIPO (World Intellectual Property Organization).