An open letter to NPR regarding quinoa and their myths

A pot of quinoa and quinoa soup cooking over a fire at the
top of a mountain overlooking the Salar de Uyuni, Bolivia.

On the 29th of November NPR published an article regarding quinoa that contained what we believed to be many nonfactual and grossly misleading elements. Mike and I have therefore jointly penned an open letter to NPR which takes issue with the some of the points made within the piece. We have emailed the author of the NPR article, Alastair Bland, and published the letter here for everyone to read.

Hello Alastair,

I read your article regarding the quinoa craze and felt I needed to write you a letter.

I am currently down in Bolivia working on a documentary about quinoa production and take issue with a number of points raised in your work.

"And it's not without challenges. In Bolivia, second in production to Peru, great prosperity has come to many farmers. But communities in the Bolivian Andes that formerly lived on quinoa have become unable to afford it and are now relying more on nutritionally inferior processed foods."

Firstly, Bolivia out produces Peru, although historically it was the other way round.

Second, I haven't interviewed a single farmer from the Altiplano region this week, or in my previous time in Bolivia, that has admitted to having given up eating quinoa due to the inability to afford his own grain. This is a myth and a falsehood. Quinoa farmers in Bolivia grow it for commercial gain. They set aside some grain, sometimes of lesser quality, or they sow a separate batch for personal use. I know this because I have spoken directly with many farmers on their land, in their quinoa fields…as recently as two days ago.

As farmers become more well off, their eating habits become diversified as they can afford to eat other foods. They CHOOSE to eat pasta or rice because of its increased availability and, to them, because of its novelty. In Bolivia, the social stigma is that quinoa is still a poor person's food, not a Whole Foods hot commodity. Though, efforts are being made to educate them on quinoa's increasing popularity in the first world…something that they themselves are also figuring out due to the unprecedented deluge of cash flow coming their way. So as they gain more wealth, they look to eat the foods of those who they perceive as having a higher social standing. The situation is far more complex than simply saying “they can't afford to eat their own grain”.

"Bolivian llama herders are also abandoning their flocks, once the region's natural fertilizer source, and, instead, planting quinoa. This seems already to be causing declining soil productivity."

Perhaps there have been instances. I can neither confirm nor deny, but not once has this been brought to my attention as a significant issue while in country. Yet I can safely say, having just driven 10 hours back to La Paz from Uyuni, I saw plenty of llama herders. I can assure you the practice is alive and well and has not been abandoned wholesale. Newer farmers are beginning to understand the importance of buying llama excrement for the enrichment of their soil. Equally, llama herders are also beginning to understand that farmers will buy their animals excrement. Therefore the farmer and the herder understand the need for one and other and the roles each of them have to play as quinoa's popularity continues.

"And property disputes are reportedly on the rise as South American entrepreneurs — often landless arrivals from the cities — compete with one another for growing space in the limited arable land of the Andes as they try to cash in on the quinoa craze."

It is true…there are property disputes. Would you like to know how they are settled? Most of the land in the Altiplano is owned directly by the members of the community. They have leaders called Jilakatas, who are the individuals who have lived and worked the land for the most time. Basically “the elders”. In Bolivia, these Jilakata's and other community members have the legal right to decide who to grant land to. As the quinoa craze increases, many individuals are returning to their communities of origin, after originally abandoning the community during the rough times, in an attempt to claim what they believe to be their land via birthright. Sometimes the leaders allow them a slice of land, sometimes not, but they simply do not roll over and give up when "landless arrivals from the cities" roll into town.

I question your research. Have you been to Bolivia? Have you spoken directly with Bolivian farmers? The sources used in your story only link back to other NPR articles.

My team and I have liaised with the Bolivian mission at the United Nations regarding the International Year of the Quinoa, set for 2013. We have liaised with quinoa farmers, laborers, market sellers and production plants. Who and where are you sourcing your information? We would be happy to share our sources with you. We would be happy to take this conversation off line and discuss in private should you so wish.

The overwhelming evidence suggests that as demand for quinoa increases, Bolivians growing quinoa is providing a viable way of working themselves out of poverty. Perpetuating these myths and half truths only serves to damage a growing economy and undermine hard working farmers' efforts to lift themselves out of poverty in an honest and sincere endeavor.

What are your motives behind this article (and the others you reference)? It appears that you'd rather Americans didn't buy from Bolivians and are making a concerted effort to turn Americans away from eating Bolivian quinoa. Convincing Americans that somehow boycotting Bolivian quinoa and taking away the bulk of international demand will do the farmers more good is unacceptable.

Is the American Dream restricted only for Americans of the United States? Is it that ambition, hard work, enterprise, blood, sweat and toil is only reserved for the people of your choosing? Is it because seeing farmers in the Developing World actually succeeding doesn't fit with your own expectation of misery and starvation? Would you prefer the humble Bolivian quinoa farmer to stay poor and remain in his place?

I charge you that all these things are the rights of all the peoples of the Americas across both continents, North and South...if not the World.

Best Regards

Stefan Jeremiah and Michael Wilcox

A meal of quinoa and llama meat. The same meal eaten by
everyone on the day we gave thanks to Pachamama.

We also intend to post some exerts from our up coming documentary, The Mother Grain, of which we are in mid-production, of an interview with a Bolivian quinoa farmer explaining how her children demand to be fed quinoa.

For more comprehensive information about the documentary please visit: The Mother Grain

Smorgasburg, Williamsburg

Hey!

This week we paid a visit to Smorgasburg, a weekly food market in Williamsburg, NYC, to promote our work on "The Mother Grain."







This is our original Kickstarter pitch video...

Thanks
Stefan and Mike

Kickstarter is alive and kicking

Oh, well hello there!

I know, I know...we’ve neglected you, blog. I apologize. It will never happen again (What’s the emoticon for finger crossed behind my back? Crap...do you think the blog can see that?).

Anyway...hello there. It’s been quite a bit since we’ve talked to you as well, and for that we are sincerely sorry. It’s been a busy summer for Stefan and I with our own personal work and projects and vacations (actually, only Stefan went on vacation. Three times. Probably more). But we’ve certainly been cracking away at the quinoa thing, and, like it or not, we’re ready to start filling our schedules with nature’s most complete nutrient once again!

First of all, we’re launching a Kickstarter to support the documentary aspect of the project. Check out the link below and please give us some dough if you’re so inclined...any little bit would really help! 

In the video, you’ll see some clips from our trip to Bolivia as well as a visit to a farm in Western New York owned by Adrian Kavesh. Adrian is trying to grow quinoa for the first time on his hillside farm and we visited as he planted the seeds. In a few weeks, we’ll travel back up to see how the crop is doing.

In addition to meeting and visiting with Adrian and learning about why he is trying to grow the crop, we’ve researched and found plenty of others who are attempting to do so too. We’ve also found and reached out to experts in fields ranging from Incan and Bolivian agricultural history to individuals at the United Nations. All of this in an effort to produce a documentary short that tells the historical story of quinoa, explain its health benefits, its contemporary, social and agricultural context, and to use quinoa as a catalyst to tell the overall story of current efforts to aid world hunger and poverty.

The plan is still to travel back to Bolivia in September to photograph the sowing and planting season for next year’s harvest, but that is still in the planning stages with Proinpa. However, from that aspect of the project, we are hoping to work with Proinpa to produce a book and series of exhibitions to celebrate 2013, dubbed the International Year of Quinoa. With that, we are hoping that an event/exhibition in New York will be a part of that...keep your ears and eyes peeled for that!

THE MOTHER GRAIN KICKSTARTER

As always, thank you.

Stefan and Mike

Nights A' Fair Drawin'

How to do this? I know! lets run it over lots of times.

The start of this week saw Mike and I jump on the train for one last qunioa related work assignment before our eventual departure back to New York and its first world luxuries, like bacon, egg and cheese bagels, vitamin water and flushing toilet paper.

We took a four hour bus ride to Oruro, then an overnight train to Uyuni. We rode first class for the price of a Snickers and were treated to some suspect music videos of random pan pipe dudes on the TV. The train trundled along painfully slower than you'd expect for a train. It made British Rail look good, but at least I had plenty of leg room.

As we reclined in our seats and drifted off, once again we were treated to the delights of some numpty mobile phone user, who had the volume on his keypad turned up to 11. Beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep as he tapped his phone. Eventually I got up and politely as possible asked him to turn it down. Mike says I wasn't that polite. I basically put my face about two inches away from his through gritted teeth, nicely asked him to turn it down. I didn't swear at him so I consider that polite.

The next numpty mobile phone user without headphones will need it surgically removed. It's a good job we're leaving on Friday.

And then I throw the stalks in your face.

The next day we met up with Genaro from Proinpa and got on the case meeting up with farmers and doing our thing. Most groups were either chopping down the crops or separating the seeds. So far we hadn't seen how they did the separating part and was surprised to find them piling up the quinoa into giant bundles and then running it over repeatedly with a large truck or a tractor. Looking for the action shot, Mike climbed up and clung off the side of a tractor for a couple of passes. Get out of my frame!

That afternoon we then shot off to the train cemetery. Of the touristy things to do here, this was pretty much the one thing I personally really wanted to do. The first time I found out about it was when another photographer friend I know took his wife and kids on a round the World extravaganza, and they made a stop here and I thought it looked awesome.

Sitting at 3,670 metres above sea level on the edge of the world's largest salt flat the Salar de Uyuni, is the final resting place for a group of locomotives that were once upon a time, the cutting edge of Victorian engineering.

Rust in peace

In the days of yore when Great Britain was actually great at doing things other than producing feral teenagers, their engineers were tasked with helping build railway networks all over South America. Towards the end of the 19^th century the Bolivian Government sought out British expertise investing in a good transport network that would be key to their economic success.

On a side note, it was these temporary British communities dotted all over South America that introduced Football to the people of this continent and not the Spanish or Italians as one might assume. Or so the myth goes. Shame Brazil had to get so damn good at it.

A sizeable British community was established in Uyuni and construction began in1888. Uyuni was intended to serve as the main distribution hub for trains carrying minerals en route to Pacific Ocean ports.

Not in service.

However, because of defeat at the hands of Chile a few years earlier whereby Chile acquired Bolivian territory, Bolivia no longer had a coastline leaving it landlocked. These disputes, coupled with a depletion of minerals and British mining companies meddling behind the scenes meant that construction was eventually abandoned.

Their use limped on until the eventual collapse of the mining industry in the 1940s. These metal carcases are what remains after they were driven 3 Kilometres outside of town and dumped in the desert, left to slowly rot away.

And now tourists from all over the world come to spray paint crappy tags and climb all over them. As evidenced by a group of German tourists who insisted on walking into every one of Mike's shots. We had the place to ourselves for about fives minutes until they arrived dressed like idiots. No man should ever wear socks and sandals, Ze German's socks were knee high.

The Salar is really bright.

The following we day we did more of the same, driving through spectacular country with incredible view after another, meeting farmers and labourers and shooting them. Then we did some more touristy things like drive out onto the Salar and mess about. We then had lunch and watched Chelsea squeeeeeeze past an over possessing Barcelona to make the Champions League final. Which was nice.

In the afternoon we went to a processing plant for quinoa and were given the royal tour.

With all our obligations completed we then made an 11 hour journey home which comprised of two buses, walking, a trufi taxi* and a taxi to get back to Cochabamba. I felt like turd by the time we got back.

Job done with over 1000 pics in the bag each, this leg of the quinoa story is now over. Just need to pack my bag and jump on four different planes via Lima and Miami. I hope Uncle Sam lets me back in.

Thanks
Stefan

*A Trufi Taxi is like an SUV or a mini van that goes along certain routes. Like a bus but smaller.

Welcome To The Jungle

A whole lot of this.

After weeks of being excited about going to hang out with some medicine men in the Amazon, the trip Stefan and I had been planning fell through at the last minute. Such is life, right? So instead of going to Rurrenabaque, where this supposed isolated tribe lived near (thing is, it turned out they weren’t so isolated), we headed in the other direction, toward Santa Cruz, destined for a town called Buena Vista.

We hopped on a bus destined for Santa Cruz, paid the driver to pull over as he passed the town, and strolled into Buena Vista around 5am. After waiting a couple of hours for the town to wake up, we found "Limber", a local guide. We negotiated a rate for a weekend jungle excursion, he helped us find a place to stay for the day and night, and by lunchtime we were clean and rested. Since we weren’t leaving until the next morning, we killed the day by exploring the town and hiking to a hotel located on a coffee plantation seven or so kilometres outside of town. It was a far way to go for a good cup of coffee, but the views there proved Buena Vista was not an ironic name for this location. We headed to Limber’s place that night (which was an auto garage...turned out he is a mechanic as well) to get some supplies, had a few beers in town, and hit the hay early, ready for an early morning.

The jungle was in tents

And that’s when Murphy beat us up with his law book. It started off great...Limber picked us up, we rolled through the SERNAP offices (park rangers, essentially) for permission to camp in the jungle, had the car parked and were hiking into the unknown before 10 am. Prior to the trip, we were warned of the amount of mosquitoes. [I’ll openly admit, though I have been taking every bit of advice since we’ve been given in Bolivia seriously, but I simply took these warnings in stride. I thought, “Ha! I’m from Missouri, it’s so humid there, I know mosquitoes...” blah blah blah. I’ve never felt dumber. Not that we didn’t have bug spray, we had plenty of it. I’ve just never been more wrong in my life, and I’ve been wrong too many times to count. Luckily, these thoughts were internalized until right at this moment...don’t judge.]

Boy were those warnings warranted! There were times in that initial hike that the mosquitoes were so numerous, I couldn’t look at or see anything else. We did, however, see some monkeys high up in the trees every now and then...unfortunately, none of them came close enough for us to take a decent picture or for me to try and steal one and bring home. Hiking along the banks of a river for a few hours, being eaten alive by the mosquitoes and dodging the biggest webs of the biggest spiders I have ever seen, we finally arrived at where was to be our home for the weekend. Limber pointed out a spot for our tent in the open woods, and he went around the corner toward an open, overhanging rock face, where he was to pitch his tent, and where our fire for the weekend would be built. We settled in for a bit and were back out for a hike in the afternoon; this time without bags, just cameras in our hands and a massive machete in Limber’s.

Gross.

We followed him as he blazed a trail by hacking through an incredible variety of foliage, until we reached another river on the other side of a bluff from where camp was. As we were hiking, Limber spotted tiger cub footprints. Our initial reaction: “Cool!” Our second reaction: “Where’s the mom?” Upon posing the second question, Limber’s eyes widened, he held his finger up to his lips and told us to be quiet...then motioned for us to follow him. A bit further down the river, we saw more cub prints. Apparently we had begun tracking a tiger cub and his mom, and all I can think is, “We only have one machete and a couple of cameras. What a great idea this is.” At this point, my brain was multi-tasking on a few things: concentrating on not slipping on the mossy rocks and falling in the river; dodging what is sure to be life threatening, hand sized spiders; and listening for what is sure to be the impending tiger attack. It was very stressful.

After doing this dance for a bit, we all stopped to sit still, be quiet, and listen. Another brilliant tactic...make the tiger think we aren’t there so when it meanders down to the river for a drink, it gets a nice surprise when it sees three fleshy human beings waiting for it. As it is, the tiger never showed up. We decided to head back to camp before the sun went down. My brain was still doing the multi-tasking dance and I guess it was too much for the ole’ cranium to handle. With camera and lens in hand and another lens strapped to my hip, I tried to negotiated a particularly tricky spot with significantly slippery rocks. Gravity had better ideas and before I knew it, my footing was gone, the rug was taken out, and I was hitting water. Luckily, I instinctively threw my camera holding hand in the air. This was a good move, be it that I saved my camera...though in doing so I sacrificed my back and leg, both of which took the brunt of the fall against the rocks. Then I realized I still had the other lens on my hip and it took the plunge with me. Quickly, I scrambled out of the water, ripped the lens out of the pouch it was in, and franticly shook it to dry it out. Without anything else, we wrapped it in a bandana and hoped for the best. Only when the ordeal was over is when I realized how much my body hurt from the fall and how much my leg was bleeding. But, with no other choice, we soldiered on. When we got back to camp, I doused my leg in disinfectant and wrapped it. My lens got another thorough drying and was placed in a plastic bag with silica gel packs (I’m lucky we thought to bring them with us). Limber whipped up some dinner for us, we ate sitting on rocks like cavemen, and by 8pm, with nothing else to do and exhaustion killing us, it was time for bed, looking forward to another fun filled day.

A tiger cub's little footprint.

Not without more fun in the middle of the night. Around 1am, the heavens opened up and it started raining buckets. With no rain fly on our tent, Stefan and I had to throw our ponchos on top. This move didn’t suffice, and everything inside of the tent was quickly becoming saturated. With no other choice, we decided the best course of action was to move all of our things to the rock face, where the ground was a lot harder but at least there was protection from the rain. This was a good idea but with bad results. We moved our packs first...and I suppose I’ll let Stefan tell this part...

The ground was slightly uneven to the side of Limber’s tent and I was wearing flip-flops. I passed around it in a hurry and my balance was slightly off so I reached out to steady myself against the rocky overhang. Immediately as I placed my right hand against the rock surface I felt a sharp stab in the fleshy corner close to my wrist. I yelped and looked at my hand but couldn't see anything, and then my it began to burn. I doubled over in pain clasping my hand. The whole of my right hand was enveloped in a firey burning sensation. I can see Mike looking confused as he asks me, “Are you ok, what's up?” I said, “I don't know, I touched the rock and now my hand is burning, I think maybe I spiked it on something.” But as he shone his head lamp and we both inspected my hand there was no mark. No red welt, or cut, or bruise, or anything, just that my hand felt like it was on fire.
We were both standing there utterly confused. I'm in almighty pain with nothing to show for it, and Mike's looking at me like, “What the hell?” And then he stepped back and said, “Dude, it's on you.” “What?” I replied. “Dude it's on you man, look.” I looked down. Crawling down the right hand side of my stomach was a large brown insect. I paused and thought maybe it was a stick insect. And then I saw its two white crab-like claws reflecting in the light. And then I panicked. Mike is still telling me, “Dude it's on you,” and I started screaming, “Get it off me!” The conversation went something like this for about two minutes:

“Dude, it's on you man.”

“Get it off me!”

“No, I don't wanna get stung.”

“Fuckin' get it off meeeeeeeeeee!”

I danced on the spot like a epileptic convulsing and shaking my t-shirt trying to get this bug off me. Said bug at this point casually saunters along my body and down my leg. As it reached mid way along my thigh I can really see its curled up tail and that it is indeed a scorpion. I don't think I could have panicked, screamed or shook any harder or louder until finally the damn thing was off me and running along the floor into the darkness.

I could now see my hand swelling in front of my very eyes. The burning pain was also now traveling along the length of my right arm and into my arm pit. I don't do jungle. I come from a rain swept island off the coast of Europe, where the nastiest thing mother nature can throw at you is mad cow disease. The most dangerous thing in my corner of the island is feral teenagers, and at least I'd have seen them coming.

I didn't know any better, I honestly thought all scorpions were deadly and that my number was up. I stood there and did the maths in my head. It was a easily a three hour hike in the dark to the car, then maybe a two hour drive to civilization. God knows how long there after to find a hospital. I felt dizzy, sat down on a rock and looked at my giant burning hand. I wish I could say I was cool about it but instead as I sat there my eyes welled up and I quietly leaked a few tears, thinking, “Great, so this is how it ends.”

Limber had been busying himself helping to move our stuff. As he came back I showed him my hand. Through the power of mime and broken Spanish we told him what had happened. He barely raised an eyebrow. Through the power of mime and the grasp of the odd key word he basically told me “Yeah it's going to hurt for a while, you'll probably feel it in you armpit too.” I asked if it was fatal. “Nah,” he replied, “just annoying.”

So that was fun. We dried our stuff and the inside of the tent and tucked in...again. I slept ok, though I can’t say the same for Stefan.

Funny enough, the next day wasn’t as event filled. Stefan was feeling better by midday, so we headed out for another hike down a different river. There was more green, slippery rocks to be negotiated, and I was extra careful. Though there were lots of slips had, no complete falls occurred. The environment was harsh and the day was extra humid from the nights’ rain, but our eventual destination was one of the coolest sights I have ever seen. Walking up this river, one can hear an ominous waterfall sound, though can never see the source until the end is reached. When the final corner is turned, a (what I would estimate) 75 foot waterfall reveals itself. It is located in a circular, woody grotto and the only place to go from there is up, to see where this waterfall originates.

With no possibility of climbing the sheer rock face to see this, we could only admire the beauty of the falling water surrounded by the jungle’s greenery. We were incredibly exhausted, but the opportunity to swim in such a location was too great to pass up, so fully clothed, we all hopped in the freezing cold water (sans cameras, I might add). Standing under the waterfall was painful and incredible at the same time. It was a well deserved break from hiking and totally worth the brutal environment to see. Unfortunately, the lens that took a bath with me the day prior was my wide angle lens, so I don’t have any good shots of the place, though Stefan was able to capture a few good ones. After staying in this location for about half an hour, we hiked back down the same path in which we came, stopped occasionally to try and get a shot or two of huge blue butterflies that seemed to be everywhere, and were back at camp by sundown. Limber made dinner again (at this point I’ll say that the dude really knew how to make good camping food...he had been working in this role for 15 years, and he’s only 34) and we ate like Neanderthals again. We again tucked in around 8pm with exhaustion dominating us.

Large waterfall. The white blob to the left is Stefan.

It rained harder the second night. Luckily, we had rain protection from the rock overhang and there was no reason to venture out of the tent where more scorpions were certainly waiting for Stefan. By early the next morning, it was still raining hard and we woke with the knowledge that we had to hike back to the truck. We were not looking forward to this as we were both sore from sleeping on rock and getting our asses kicked by the jungle. But, we had no choice. The river was already higher and running faster from two night of rain and if we waited any longer, it may have become impassible. So, we packed up and headed out. With our heads hung low from the exhaustion that didn’t seem to go away, the mosquitoes and terrifying spiders didn’t carry as much of a presence as they had a few days prior. The hike went by without any real incident, outside of waist high river fording and Stefan taking a mini spill. We got to the truck by 10am and were heading back to civilization.

We thought our troubles were over...but then we ran into a road block. Apparently the citizens (all ten of them) of this little pueblo thought the road was impassible and forced us to wait two hours until they deemed it safe. After being allowed to pass, we didn’t see anything on the road worth blocking it over. But, at this point, all we could do was roll our eyes. When we finally got back to Buena Vista, Limber took us to his place so we could shower up before heading to the bus. His wife and kid were home, and she was nice enough to make us lunch as well. When we were ready, the family even drove us to the next town over to catch a car to Santa Cruz, so we could then get a bus headed to Cochabamba. We purchased tickets in the Santa Cruz terminal, hung around for about an hour, then promptly passed out in our seats when we boarded the overnight coach. We were headed home and our troubles were NOW over. Kind of.

Around 4am, when the bus was an hour outside of Cochabamba, the engine broke down. A brief look out of the window told us we were somewhere in the mountains. Without speaking to each other, Stefan and I seemed to reach the same conclusion...and that was, “I’m going back to sleep and I’ll deal with this when I wake up.” About two and a half hours later, we stirred right in time for the back up bus to show up. We switched coaches, rode into Cochabamba, and were walking into our apartment with a few hours to spare before lunchtime.

So, not so much a Joseph Conrad novel...but certainly an experience. I can’t say the same for Stefan, but I actually would go back. Though, I’d make sure I’d be better prepared!

Thanks
Mike

Weak In The Field: Stefan

Pulling it up by the roots

And so after many discussions, planning, aeroplanes, meetings, trial runs and distractions, last week saw us finally undertake what we came here to really do. Although what we came here to really do is something that has also evolved. In short, we are photographing quinoa farmers, their harvest and their crops in order to create a published book and series of exhibitions in collaboration with Proinpa.

Our week long excursion amongst the growers of quinoa began with an overnight bus to the Bolivian capital La Paz. Cochabamba bus station was a shit show, with people everywhere and ticket sellers yelling destinations out over and over. We caught the 11pm bus with minutes to spare. It was parked behind the 11:30pm bus and in the grand shit show spectacular of unwashed, zombies and Quechuas this detail wasn't immediately apparent.

I was expecting another special journey like the one to Toro Toro where we were treated to the delightful smells of sweat, crotch and fart. However, this wasn't the case. The seats were massive, loads of leg room and they reclined really far back. I put my hood up and slept most of the 6 hours comfortably.

We arrived in La Paz at 6am and needed to kill two hours as we were due to meet Andrea from Proinpa. We did this by urinating, cleaning our teeth and slowly drinking a couple of coffees. Andrea had flown into La Paz from Cochabamba, which only takes half an hour and she looked much better suited to the full day's work that lay ahead. I didn't feel bad per say, just kinda vacant.

Day one involved driving an hour out of La Paz to Quipaquipani where Proinpa had their laboratory test fields. On the way we drove through a town called Viacha. Spanish Vs and Bs are confusing me. They sound the same. Couple that with my cloth ears and for about half an hour I thought we were getting breakfast in a town called “Biatch”. Nevermind.

This guy was beyond happy about harvesting quinoa

We visited several locations with plots of quinoa growing in them. The region we were in is called Altiplano. The area consists of a large flat plain surrounded by mountains, sitting at a whopping 3380 metres above sea level. Your lungs always feel empty and your heart pounds like its about to jump out your chest over the simplest of actions. It's warm in the sun and immediately cold when a passing cloud goes by. I wore a woolly hat all day regardless, at this altitude the sun is just vicious and I'm sick of burning the shit out of my nose and face.

The plan was to stay at a hotel that night in La Paz and get another bus nice and early to Oruro. After a great but long first day, it didn't really leave us much more time in the evening other than to get showered and go get something to eat before hitting the sack. My meagre experience of La Paz however, was pretty positive. It had a good vibe and I'd like to go there again for longer and see what else it has to offer.

The La Paz bus terminal seems like less of a shit show but the constant yelling of the ticket sellers was really doing my head in. Each ticket booth has a rep who stands in front yelling the destination over and over and over. In our case we needed tickets for a bus to Oruro. We identified the right person and booth by the heavy set lady yelling “Orororororororororororuooooooooooooooooooh”. We asked her how much and what time it was leaving etc. As we tried to pay her and she wrote out our receipts she continued to yell “Orororororororororororuooooooooooooooooooh” the whole time. And once on the bus we could still hear her in the background giving it: “Orororororororororororuooooooooooooooooooh”. And once the bus was moving and no one else could get on, she still hung out the fucking bus window yelling: “Orororororororororororuooooooooooooooooooh”. At some point into the four hour journey to Orororororororororororuooooooooooooooooooh she stopped yelling it.

Finally in Oruro we met up with a bunch of people at the Proinpa office. They had assigned us two little Suzuki 4x4s and drivers Jorge and Oscar to chauffeur our arses around for the next few days.

This is the red one. We also had a white one.

In a nutshell we then spent the next few days tearing around the country side. Check out the little animated map we made on Mike's last post. It started off well, the road was well paved and looked like any normal U.S. Highway. According to the sign, funding for construction was provided by the E.U. So it's not just Greece who got all of Germany's money then. A few more hours in and the road was still well made, but just missing a real top surface. The further we travelled the more the quality deteriorated until finally at times we weren't even technically on a road. Just some rough ground with a few tire tracks here and there. The majority of the ride though was a turbulent kidney rupturing shake fest.

The first couple of days were great in terms of scenery and landscapes, of which we shot the shit out of. En route we even took pictures of a giant meteor crater that now doubled as a lake surrounded by quinoa plots down in it's circular base. However we were also here to photograph farmers and not just empty fields. Through Andrea we were able to get the point across without having to throw any real tantrums and the situation was fixed. Apparently some of the labourers we encountered had issues with us “exploiting” them or something. I don't really know, as the sound of my camera shutter was drowning them out.

The processing plant we were supposed to visit had been giving us the run around, either not answering the door or telling us to come back later. Finally when we got in, the rain had cut the power to the village and the workers were finishing up for the day. Mike got the hump pretty badly and understandably so. He got a lovely guided tour of the place which he was able to film, unfortunately none the poxy machines were running or the people in there doing anything. Which meant he didn't really get the footage he was looking for.

This girl was funny

I was also my birthday on the 3^rd of April. When we were done with our day of shooting and driving Mike and I tried to celebrate with a beer or two. Unfortunately the hotel only had one beer on the entire premise left and it was rank. So we drank the place dry by sharing the last bottle of sugary “Cervesa Negro” which was pretty fucking nasty and called it a night. Oh well.

After a long week we took the bus from Oruro home to Cochabamba. The four hour ride took a little longer as traffic was pretty heavy, mainly because a lot of people were out and about for Good Friday, going to and from church. The journey was made harder by some Argentine doris sitting in the seat in front. She kept playing the same two or three songs on repeat out loud on her phone. We were tired and cranky and let our protests clearly known. But she chose to ignored them. So after a brief DJ battle between her and Mike's iPod she finally left the bus. I took the opportunity to remind her that the Falkland Islands will always be British by heckling said fact at her down the aisle as she made her way off. The knobhead accompanying her gave me a filthy look. Haha.

Thanks

Stefan

Weak In The Field: Michael

this scarecrow doesn't have a brain either

Admittedly, Stefan and I began developing itchy trigger fingers after weeks of more talk and less photos. Be careful what you wish for, as they say, because after last week we now have more photos of quinoa than we know what to do with.

Our tour de force took us from Cochabamba to La Paz to Viacha to Oruro to Challapatta to Huari to Salinas and all the way back (see the delightfully, yet horribly, animated map for reference). The roads were windy, steep, high and low, paved and dirt, and sometimes they weren't roads at all…they were simply tracks of another vehicle that had been there only hours prior. The landscape was consistently amazing. At times one's eye could not see past the flat land horizon; at others, many mountain tops abruptly interrupted the view, only to interject and say "This view is more beautiful." The urge to constantly stop the cars, hop out and take a photo was difficult to fight; after all, we were in these locations to do a job. If we had humored these urges each time, we likely would not have taken any pictures of quinoa at all. Well…that's not entirely true...more on that in a moment.

Our first images of quinoa were captured in Quipaquipani, a town within Viacha, which is a town just outside of La Paz. In Quipaquipani, Proinpa works and experiments with different types and varieties of quinoa. They study how it grows in different climates and also how they can create new strains of quinoa. I didn't catch much of the explanations through conversations and interviews because I was filming and worrying about the quality of video footage. Oh, and everyone was speaking in rapid Spanish (my knowledge of the language has greatly improved in our time here, but I'm still far from 'native speaker' level). But I did glean an understanding of their work and why they do it as far as seeing how different types of quinoa behave in different climates. I'll have a better understanding once I get all of the audio translated and subtitled (anyone want to help?).

A journey to rival Louis and Clark, except it wasn't as long and we had cars.

However, the real experience began the next day. We arose and left our hotel in La Paz before the sun had a chance to wipe his sleepy eyes, and hopped on a bus destined for Oruro. Once there, we had a brief meeting with the folks in the Proinpa offices located there. A plan of attack was drawn out, tracing the steps we were to make over the next few days, taking us through the aforementioned towns. We were pumped. We met the men driving the cars, Jose and Oscar; both of whom had quinoa farmer contacts in some towns along our route. We inhaled some food, piled into the cars, and were off.

Salinas was to be (and eventually was) our destination for the day. But, being the ignorant gringos that we are, Stefan and I didn't realize exactly how long and far Salinas was. As the crow flies, I would imagine it's no different than a day trip to Upstate New York. But this ain't New York and this ain't north of the equator. On the way, we passed tons of quinoa farms and people working them. So when we realized exactly the trip we were in for (8 hours of feeling like you’re in a paint can mixer), we accepted that no photos were to be taken that day but were excited for the next day and looking forward to meeting lots of farmers.

The next day was full of incredible sites and great panoramics (one of which required a mountain climb...my favorite part of the day). We did have some difficulty meeting with some farmers as some fields simply weren’t being harvested and the farmers that were harvested were understandably wary of us gringos. But the ones we were able to meet and photograph were gracious and interested in what we were doing. They were curious why we were interested in what was their everyday work, but with the clouds hung low, the mountains in the background, and the vibrant colors of the quinoa in the sunlight, we were curious why they were confused at our interest! The day ended on a bit of a disappointment as we arrived at a quinoa processing plant a bit too late in the day, so the machines weren’t running and the people weren’t working. But Andrea, our guide, was great in helping us recover from that and helped us plan a successful next day.

ohhh pretty landscape

When we were finished with the day, we were all exhausted and quinoa'd out. After a quick lunch back in Oruro, we hopped on a bus back to Cochabamba. Since we've been back, we've assembled a few contact sheets for Proinpa to preview and they are very happy with the results. It seems we have earned a potentially huge working opportunity with them, but as that one still isn't completely set in stone, I won't divulge any more. Suffice it to say we've since had a few more meetings, need to travel back to Oruro and Challapatta, and perhaps back to Bolivia come October-time.

Thanks

Mike.