Football Bolivia

Our guide Freddy was awfully excited about the football match.  His home town Sucre were playing the locals Potosi in the final.  We went along and the atmosphere was similar to a footy match at home.  People wearing their team colours, lots of families eating dodgy food and cheer squads down each end of the pitch.  Although the cheer squads in Bolivia are better than at home.  They have drums and other instruments and sing and dance in the stands, which is cool.  They also have a lot of firecrackers which they randomly through into the stands, which is not so cool.

The stadium was a little different to home.  Mainly the security; the 6ft barbed wire fences, followed by a 20m buffer zone so anything thrown over the fence wouldn't land on the pitch.  And the riot police. They had batons and shields and were lined up on both sides of the fence.  I couldn't figure out why they were on the inside of the fence - no one was going over that thing.
 

Riot police on standby

The match itself was a normal soccer match, 80 minutes of pass, pass, pass.  Stop, pass, pass.  Turnover.  Pass, pass, pass.  How is this one of the most watched sports in the world?  It bores the shit out of me.

Potosi v Sucre - Sucre are in the red.

But as is common with soccer, things actually start happening in the dying minutes.  Finally a goal was scored by Potosi - the home crowd went nuts!  The team ran around like they'd already won the match congratulating themselves for a ridiculously long time then the match restarted.  Then there was a red card for Potosi from the ref.  The crowd goes nuts, the team goes nuts.  The other team comes in and they get into a bit of a melee which is soon sorted out when the riot police step in.

The game restarts again only to have Sucre score in the 93rd minute.  Potosi fans are livid but Freddy out of his seat excited and all of a sudden there are full drinks and other shit getting thrown at us.

Riot police seperating the teams after a red card.

Potosi stadium - note 6ft fence and buffer zone.

 Turns out Sucre only need a draw in this match to take out the whole thing, so the locals are spewing.  The refs are escortted off the ground at the locals throw things like full 2lt bottles and batteries at them.  The locals then turn on anyone wearing the red and blue of Sucre (I had to hide my scarf in my bag).  They blocked all the exits and as the cheersquad tried to leave they were beating the shit out of them.  Punching and kicking into them.  The riot police had to move in and escort the fans onto the ground so the locals couldn't get to them.  The whole thing was fucking mad.

Riot police escort the unpopular refs from the ground.

All in all it was a pretty mad night.  It was definately something we wouldn't experience at home.  But something I'm glad of.  You ask the locals about it and they just excuse the behaviour as 'oh we're very passionate about our football'.  But it sounds like bullshit to me.  You can be passionate about something without being violent.

Oh Bolivia, you are fantastic!

Michael & I had a great time in our whirlwind tour of Bolivia.  We toured a working mine, visited the salt flats, a train cemetary, rode some horses and saw a mad game of soccer.  In La Paz we visited the witches markets which are full of llama fetus & statues of Pacha mama the earth goddess.  And I shopped up a storm managing to spend a couple hundred bucks in a couple of hours in one of the cheapest places on earth!

But like lots of places, it can be the people you meet that help make it.  We went for dinner with Cecilia & Patty - two Bolivian girls who Michael met travelling a few years back.  They were really cool.  Took us to dinner & out to a club where there was this Bolivian-African band with plenty of big drums and crazy instruments I've never seen before.

For our tour of Bolivia we had Freddy, also a Bolivian, as our guide and Laura & Ericka fellow tourists.  Freddy was a great guy, knew a lot about his country and was well excited when he realised we were going to be in Potosi for the football final between Potosi and Freddy's home town Sucre.  When he told us about it we were keen as mustard, so he organised tickets, I got me a Sucre scarf and off we went to the footy.

The mine tour was pretty cool.  We started with a trip to the miner's markets where we bought some presents for the miners; kind of a thank you for letting us visit and sorry for interrupting your work.  We bought cocoa leaves, fizzy drinks, cigarettes and dynamite.  Yep, that's right, anyone can buy themselves a stick of dynamite for 15 bolivianos, which is about $2!

Me and my $2 dynamite

Ready for the mine tour.

 In the mine it was hot and claustrophobic.  As we walked down the narrow tunnels we were regularly made to squash ourselves against a wall as a couple of guys pushing a one tonne cart came running past at full speed.  We also stopped by an idol of the devil, where the workers pay him respect and give him gifts, hoping in return that he will show them where the precious metals are.  They give him cocoa leaves, cigarettes and alcohol.  The alcohol is 96% and smells like metho.  Michael & I drank it and I thought I was going to choke, and was then burping up metho breath for hours - ugggh!

Ericka, Laura & I swimming at the hot springs.

Random street festival

All in all, there were so many things to see and do in Bolivia I think we could have spent a lot more time there.  We missed the Cholita wrestling, touring the prison (although I'd heard a lot of bad things so wasn't too concerned missing that), could have spent more time in the salt flats and Sucre and Michael never got to Lake Titicaca.  Ah well - next time.