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Octubre 24, 2005

A Look Back: Plaza Murillo

October 2000: This is the first in a series of photo + descriptions of photos taken during my time in South America between 2000-2003.

Overnight buses from Cochabamba always dump you at the La Paz bus station no later than 6:30 a.m. The urge to linger as long as possible catching as much sleep as possible, usually is interrupted by an employee announcing that it was time to disembark. At that time of morning, if the drowsiness doesn’t overwhelm you, the cold surely will. The four of us had arrived in La Paz as part of our anthropology coursework and a visit to an Afro-Bolivian community in the Yungas. It was much too early to give the university professor a ring, as he was supposed to make the arrangements with the homestay family. To pass the time, we took a trufi-taxi to the Plaza Murillo, where this shot was taken.

Huddling on a couple of benches, the morning fog still enveloped many of the government buildings. As it began to lift, the scene around us would slowly develop. Schoolchildren scurried off to class, as a couple of soldiers solemnly raised the Bolivian flag. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a keenly familiar face. At the time, I knew I recognized him as someone of notoriety, but couldn’t place my finger on his name. He was an obvious tourist, but appeared to be on some sort of mission. It wasn’t until I saw a PBS documentary about Michael Palin (ex-Monty Python) and his travels around the world that I was reminded about the mystery man. I perhaps would have spoken with him, if I remembered him at the time, but it’s not polite to ask someone “who are you?”