Sorata

Sorata is a small town on the base of Mnt Illampu (not to be confused with Illumani, above La Paz). For some reason (influence of the nearby Yungas?), it has a particularly mild climate though it sits on the edge of the mountain. Waters there are clear, cold, and straight from the snows on the mountains above. Meanwhile, hibiscus, cherimoyas and camellias grow happily in the gardens of colonial style hotels

There were two rather strange elements to my trip to Sorata… the case of the Spanish spy and the chance encounter with a Californian acquaintance. At first I thought that the group of people sitting next to me at the café and later barbequing on our beautiful deck were a family, perhaps Spanish, because they were pale skinned with what sounded like a Spanish accents. It was some time later, after drinking beer with them for hours that I realized they were two parties. The females, mother, two daughters and a friend, were a Bolivian family and the Spaniard was an acquaintance who happened to be staying in my hotel.

The Gallego was a chain smoker (along with the mother and older daughter) with stories of being the Spanish army, training soldiers to shoot at close range, being part of UN troops in Africa, now supposedly retired in Bolivia. We took to calling him the spy, because of his mysterious presence in this small town in Bolivia. Apparently he had two ex-wives and two daughters living in twin apartments in Gallecia. He proceeded to flirt mercilessly with the 26 year old daughter, though he was closer in age to the mother. Though a soldier, he seemed educated and liberal in U.S. terms. His presence, his stories, and sly smile were welcome entertainment. He opinions to spare, and one diatribe about how Cubans would prostitute themselves to get out of the country was unfortunately cut short by a Cuban woman dining at the table next to us. We all shrunk lower in our seats, trying to remember what we had said about Cubans while he tried ineffectually to dig himself out of his hole.

Meanwhile, around us the town celebrated the feriado, in honor of the foundation of the La Paz district, with a typical three day bought of drunkenness and dancing. The amateur band played the same songs incessantly for most of the day and the night. Toasted chollitas shook their multiple skirts in time. We stayed up late on Saturday drinking rounds of ponche, a seemingly benign hot spiced milk drink, which left all of us with aching heads in the morning.

An older, pale, North American lurked on the edges of this revelry. We saw her sitting alone at the same spots where we went. I noticed her watching us, but didn’t think much of it until I was sitting drinking coffee on Sunday morning when she passed me by. When I quarried where she was from, she said Mendocino. Do we know each other I asked? No, I wasn’t the person I reminded her of, she said. Then she mentioned her daughter in Berkeley, Jade, and we slowly realized that I reminded her of Lindsay. We had visited Jade’s family in the Anderson Valley about a year and a half before, so we knew each other, if only vaguely.

The weekend in Sorata ended with the usual excruciatingly long mini-bus ride home. While I have contact with the Bolivian family, the Spanish spy seems to have mysteriously disappeared. Our plans to cook a tortilla in La Paz never materialized. Meanwhile, the daughter admitted he had confided that his reason for being in Bolivia was to sell false papers to Bolivians for immigration to Spain. I had run across my first coyote.