Cine

In La Paz, it's even harder to find anything vegetarian to eat on the street than in Peru. On the second day, after walking for hours and eating only biscuits, I give up and look up a veggie restaurant in town. This will save me from starvation.

While waiting for my meal, I chat with the two workers of the restaurant. The girl is from Chile and a little punk, but not too much. She's very cute. The guy, co-owner of the place, comes from Norwegian Lapland and looks like an elf. The girl who's a little punk but not too much says that there will be a free screening of a film at a cinema that evening. I ask the guy who looks like an elf why it is for free, and he just shrugs his shoulders: That happens sometimes. But it's in a neighbourhood I haven't been to yet, and since I had wanted to walk around there anyway, it sounds like a perfect plan.

On my way to the hostel, I stumble across a demonstration on the Plaza Mayor. A big demonstration. The people have filled the whole square, amongst them children, young and old people. It's not a very warm day, and everybody is wearing jumpers and jackets. Some have taken over the balcony of a building. Street vendors mingle among the crowd as usual.

Afraid of appearing blatantly ignorant of some hugely topical issue in the country (or being punched by some frenzied demonstrator), I choose not to ask anyone what the protest is all about. I try to read some of the banners, but they don't reveal the mystery either ("30 mega projects -> 30 disasters!"). Instead, I ask the kitchen worker of the hostel when I get back.

"Oh, it's about water", she says. "Water?" I enquire. She tells that there is a serious water shortage in the city and people are at the end of their rope. "And the government doesn't do anything", I suggest to empathise with the protestors, but she says it isn't really the government's fault. "You know, the water is gone", she smiles helplessly. "Climate change."

I spend the rest of the day roaming the streets of unknown neighbourhoods and find the cinema on time by 7:30. It turns out that the old beautiful building is actually a municipal theatre and the film to be shown is a work of some film students. Both the elf and the punk show up to accompany me, and once we have taken our seats, I ask the girl why she has left Chile. "Chile is terrible!" she exclaims. I'm surprised. What's so bad about Chile? "The people", she replies. "They're awful. I like Columbia, Bolivia and Paraguay."

Then there are four young men on the stage in suits, and the one holding the microphone is almost in tears, talking about the overwhelmingness of finally seeing their film being screened. But when the film – a drug mafia crime thriller – begins, it is so badly made (even for a student film) that we decide to leave half an hour into the start. I'm not disappointed, though. It's been a good La Paz day.