My Bad Attitude
Welcome to my random musings about the world, on a weekly-to-occasional basis.
Where we are: We’re currently in Hiroshima, where a) the G7 meeting just ended, and b) well, you know the rest. The vibe here is fascinating—it’s a dynamic, lively, engaging city, full of profoundly sobering memorials and reminders. A paradox.
Note: this essay is about my memories of Bolivia, which we visited before the pandemic. I have no idea what prompted me to write about it (last month while we were in Australia, in case I haven’t confused you enough already) but here you go.
My Bad Attitude
Sometimes people ask what we thought of a particular city or country, and usually I can answer honestly. Most places are, at the very least, interesting. But I have to confess: I almost never say that I hated a place, or that I’d never go back, even if that’s actually the case. I don’t ever want to disparage a country or city that someone else—the residents, especially—might love.
Plus, after having a few particularly bad experiences, we’ve come to realize that our impression of a destination is likely to be as much about our hotel as anything else.
Lee looks back on our hotel in La Paz, Bolivia as “one of the biggest mistakes we’ve ever made.” I think that’s because he’s had to spend the last four years reminding me not to say mean things about La Paz.
On my good days, when I can make myself think rationally about it, I know there was much that I enjoyed in La Paz. The transit system is stunning (a brand-new, gorgeous cable-car system, sailing high above the city for pennies per ride). We went to the best vegetarian restaurant I’ve ever been to—it was a multi-course Michelin-quality miracle, and like the transit system, unbelievably inexpensive. I went back twice more. I loved seeing the women wearing traditional Andean clothing; I thought it was fascinating to experience one of the highest-altitude cities in the world.
But that hotel. It colored everything about our week in La Paz (it’s also worth noting: that was the year I was at the peak of my perimenopausal agita—it’s possible nothing would’ve pleased me). Here’s some of what I jotted down at the time (there was more, but it was just meanness and doesn’t bear repeating):
“Room is tiny and furnished with what looks like extremely old, shabby children’s furniture made of plywood. It has that quality where the cream-colored paint has basically melted from being touched so much, making it look grubby. Bathroom reeks, always, of permanent wave solution (which is another way of saying sewage). Bedcovers are, again, super-heavy: two thick wool blankets sandwiched between dingy sheets. Have the blankets ever been washed? Of course not. There are two desk chairs and one slipper chair, so at least there’s somewhere to sit. The view from the “French” doors is of a narrow, busy, polluted, filthy street in the center of town. There’s a portable electric radiator in the room, & it’s mostly comfortably warm, so that’s a positive … Stayed for one miserable, irritable, unpleasant week, during which every time I walked out the door, I had to do battle with altitude and little old ladies selling desiccated alpaca fetuses. Lee spent two days in bed, with round two of diarrhea in two weeks. Generally speaking, I hate Bolivia.”
On our way to the airport, at the end of that cranky week, we drove through the neighborhood where the US embassy is located. The streets were wide and clean and tree-lined. There were nice hotels and cozy-looking coffee shops. Would we have had a completely different experience if we’d been staying in a more modern, comfortable room in that part of town? Would the same have been true in Phnom Penh, or Dakar, or Fes, or any other place that I’ve been only too happy to leave, because we made a bad hotel choice?
That’s why I try not to say negative things—because, y’know, your mileage may vary, and mine is probably inaccurate anyway.
But I will say this: maybe avoid the dried alpaca fetuses. Nobody needs to see that every day.
Take care,
Lisa
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