Today, we needed to do four things:
- Eat a sandwich
- Print out a waistcoat pattern
- Go to Interpol
- Buy some fabric
It was not a wildly successful trip.
The sandwich
One interesting fact about Bolivia is that there are very few international fast food chains. In Cochabamba, there are no McDonald’s outlets, no Starbucks, and no Subway, although it does have a Burger King.
Instead, there is a little sandwich shop whose clientele, captive in the lack of Subways, pays prices that wouldn’t be out of place in London for baguettes with a nasty tendency to dribble water and diluted mayo. Their main selling point is that the vegetables are “clean”.
It is precisely this shop that my partner has developed cravings for. So, I sat and watched him much on a foot-long pork sandwich for 38 Bs; approximately £3.80. A handsomely-sized “personal” pizza, presumably for a rather large person, at a well-to-do restaurant down the road costs 35 Bs.
The waistcoat pattern
At the first shop I visited, I explained that I needed this pattern in either A0 or lots of bits of A4. The woman’s face went blank at this. She asked a colleague, who had no idea. Helpfully, I took a piece of A4 paper from my rucksack to demonstrate. “Oh, that’s a special size,” she said. “We could do it for you, but it would be 600 Bs.”
At shop number two, the woman explained to me the impossibility of printing just one document. I made a mental note to return if I needed 300 waistcoats patterns.
At shop the third, the man’s face darkened. “Those sizes aren’t standard around here,” he said, adding ominously that it was perhaps common in the US. I sensed that I had crossed some kind of line with my arrogant paper dimension requests. He launched with grim satisfaction into a monologue about how if I wanted to print this funny size, I could go and buy my own paper and find a printer that would take it, but his machines wouldn’t.
My wicked paper imperialism and I gave up at this point.
Interpol
To verify that we aren’t some kind of DAESH sleeper cell or El Chapo, Bolivia would like Interpol certificates from us before we can have a visa. Interpol, we were assured, is on the north side of Plaza Principal – you know, the one that is completely closed and in utter disarray while they refurbish everything from the paving to the pigeons.
We tried to walk along the north side, but a gun-toting policeman told us, while we ducked a falling cable from the works above, that we needed to go round the other side, and also that Interpol was on the other side of town.
On the other side of the work, a dutiful workman informed us that there was no entry. I asked him how, in this case, we were meant to get to Interpol. He seemed to consider, decide that he didn’t know, and then casually ignore the question, but while these expressions were playing out on his face, a stream of people walked past him, so we joined them.
We reached the end of the path, asked another policeman where Interpol was, and he, too, told us it was on the other side of town. At this point, out of time, we decided to postpone it for tomorrow.
The fabric
On closer inspection, the shop on Avenida Ayacucho turned out to be catering for a specific audience, so we decided to look in the market tomorrow. But if you see photos of Andy in a waistcoat made of lacy, floral bridal wear, you’ll know we went back.
For when my ideas want to get out. 