#potolo

Historia de la Serenata Quiteña Fuente: Jessica Orellana, https://quitotradicional.wordpress.com/   La Serenata Quiteña tiene un preámbulo previo al 5 de diciembre de 1961, fecha en que se consagró como tal en la historia de las fiestas de Quito.   Ese preámbulo lo consistió en que el Dúo Benítez-Valencia fue llamado por la gerencia de Radio Quito, donde actuamos en el programa «Canciones del…

New Post has been published on http://tonysbooks.com/2014/12/12/fantasy-books-jack-potolo-return-to-the-dog-star/

Fantasy Books: Jack POTOLO: Return to the Dog Star

Fantasy Books: Jack POTOLO: Return to the Dog Star

Young Jack survives a deadly ambush is injured and unconscious. He wakes up to find out that his parents are dead and is now called POTOLO after a planet attributed to the Dogons’ tribe cosmology… An intricate web of mystery, suspense, action and amazing adventures from Africa to a star far, far away ensues…

A momentous destiny is revealed set against the mysteriously savage yet enthralling African backdrop. POTOLO was instructed by his parents to embark on a quest connected

My heart broke when I heard Daniel’s story, a young man whose father left the family when he was 7and whose only brother, at the age of 5 months, was stolen from their family by a rich neighbor. The neighbor was able to bribe the Bolivian court to counterfeit the birth papers to gain custody, and when Daniel attempted to reunite with his long lost brother fifteen years later to tell him the truth, he was deemed a lunatic and creep by his very own blood.  On top of that, his mother was too poor to pay for his education and Daniel was working overtime and skipping meals just to complete his second year of university.

This is not an unfamiliar story in a country where corruption is rampant and human rights violations abound, but are usually swept under the rug.  What should be god given freedoms and rights, often seem out of hands reach when 75% of the population lives below the poverty line and 21% of children (between 8 and 14) work out of necessity in dangerous mines or on the street as lustrabotas. With neighboring countries flourishing, Bolivians struggle in vain to keep their nation out of the grasps of poverty, corruption and political unrest.

Yet ironically, despite the tragic social problems, Bolivia is a country of unimaginable beauty and bountiful natural resources like quinoa, soybeans, zinc and natural gas. And after spending two weeks exploring the southwestern countryside on foot, horseback and jeep, we were completely caught off guard by the diversity and richness of the land and its people. 

Along our journey, we saw indigenous Jal’qa villagers working on weavings that would take months to finish a small, single tapestry which depicted their traditional beliefs and lifestyle. Children of weavers acted as apprentices and were eager to show off and sell us their own hand woven bracelets.  Crossing through rivers and valleys, we encountered an endless expanse of impressive and changing landscapes: from deserted lost cities perched beneath snowcapped volcanoes to green, black and red lagoons home to thousands of migrating flamingoes; from lush riverbeds filled with feeding llamas to a sea of water on top of the world’s largest salt flat. We felt like we had seen the fiery red canyons of Utah and Arizona, the eerie moonscape formations of the Badlands and the idyllic mountaintops of British Columbia…all in the span of a few days as our jeep hugged the precipices of the Bolivian countryside.  We had no idea any of this existed in this country when we first arrived.

And so after a month in Bolivia, we’ve come to see that the quality of life, economic strength, and system of justice within a country is rarely a reflection of its culture, natural resources or the character of its people.  Maybe the latter has been inspired because of the difficulties of the former – but it often seems unfair the way these things seem to happen.  Regardless of the reasons, Bolivia is a country bursting with cultural depth and natural beauty, but because it has been shackled by a bad economy and corrupt politics, it seems to have fallen off the radar of most travelers.

On to Potolo

            The following morning we were up and off on the more challenging trail to Potolo.  What should have been a 6-hour hike turned into an 8-hour hike because of a few little turn-arounds here and there.  Overall, though, it was another beautiful hike along mountain top ridges and down deep valleys to the little town of Potolo.