Tuesday, January 30, 2007

Chile



Pasar de Bolivia a Chile no es facil, y menos si el primer pueblo de Chile que se visita es San Pedro de Atacama que, a pesar de ser un pueblucho perdido en el medio del desierto, tiene precios de capital de nacion. Bolivia nos tenia mimados con su nivel de vida perfecto para mochileros con un presupuesto ajustado. Chile en cambio esta desesperado por parecerse a los paises europeos y pone los precios acorde. Desde luego ha sido un sopapo en la cara bastante importante.




Cuando hicimos el plan del trayecto acordamos no pasar mas tiempo en Chile del que sea necesario ya que era invevitable atravesar el pais andino para ir desde el sur de Bolivia al norte de Peru sin tener que volver atras por La Paz y Puno, pero al ver que teniamos tiempo y dinero decidimos que no seria mala opcion el visitar un poco el norte de Chile. Cambiamos de opinion al de cinco minutos de llegar a San Pedro. Es que ha sido abandonar el pais sudamericano mas barato por el mas caro.




El dinero no ha sido el unico cambio dramatico que hemos experimentado. Tambien bajamos de casi 5000 metros de altitud a 2000 en apenas una hora. Un dia despues ya estabamos al nivel del mar (Arica). Y joder si se nota. Nos levantamos el dia 28 a las 4 de la mañana a -3ºC en el parque Eduardo Avaroa y a las 12 del mediodia ya estabamos a 30ºC.




Ahora mismo estamos en Arica, el pueblo mas al norte de Chile y punto de partida para atravesar la frontera a Peru. A pesar de ser un poco mas barato que San Pedro nos esta costando un ojo de la cara cada minuto que pasamos aqui. Y ademas el cielo esta nublado haciendo que tenga que pasar en el plan de playa. Arica es conocido por ser un punto importante en la guerra del pacifico entre Peru y Chile haciendo que esta ultima "robase" una parte del territorio del sureste peruano, incluyendo esta poblacion costera. Ayer estuvimos en el museo, que esta en un mirador en lo alto del cerro de la ciudad, y es bastante gracioso leer como se intentan explicar por iniciar la guerra tanto con Peru como con Bolivia. Segun los paneles del museo las razones por las que Chile declaro la guerra a sus vecinos fueron "una deficiente delimitacion fronteriza con Bolivia" , vamos, que los chilenos querian mas y los bolivianos obviamente dijeron no, "el descubrimiento de guano", de ahi que los chilenos querian mas territorio, "la crisis financiera del Peru", hay que aprovecharse de las debilidades ajenas, ¿quien no lo hace hoy en dia?, y "el impulso economico del pueblo chileno", por fin la pura verdad. Los chilenos querian mas dinero y como eran mas fuertes que los peruanos y los bolivianos pues aqui mando yo. Los chilenos quisieron ser los estadounidenses del sur, pero llegaron tarde. USA se independizo en 1776 y ya empezo a robar territorios primero a los indios al año siguiente. Tardaron70 años en mirar a Mexico y a tocar los cojones por ahi tambien. Chile logro separarse de la corona española en 1817 y no se dieron cuenta hasta 1879 de que ellos tambien podian robar. Por desgracia para ellos para entonces ya habia una mejor delimitacion fronteriza y no estaba tan bien visto eso de entrar en paises ajenos y cambiar los bordes asi como asi. Y por eso es que que Lima no pertenece a Chile ahora. Eso si, consiguieron una parte de tierra importante que casualidades de la vida resulta ser una region enorme de salitre, por aquel entonces muy valiosa. Es que los paises que no han sido imperialistas es porque no han podido.




Dentro de unas horas nos vamos a Tacna, primer ciudad de Peru. La idea era coger un bus nocturno a Arequipa y pasar ahi unos dias, pero Lynz no se ha levantado muy bien y parece que dormiremos al menos una noche en Tacna. Parece que le tiene que entrar un problema estomacal por cada pais. De momento 3 de 3, a ver que pasa con Ecuador. No andamos mal de tiempo. Tenemos que estar el dia 6 en Lima para pillar un avion a Iquitos, asi que nos queda todavia una semana.




Un saludo




Por cierto, el viaje por el salar de Uyuni y el circuito del suroeste fue una pasada. Lynz habla con bastante profundidad en su post, pero como esta en ingles yo intentare hacer lo mismo en español proximamente.Aqui un pequeño previo. Las aguas termales a las 6 de la mañana. 0ºC fuera del agua, 28ºC dentro.

Monday, January 29, 2007

From Bolivia to Chile

The last few days have taken us to some of the most uninhabitable, barren, but amazing earth I have ever seen to the the most developed country in South America.

I´ll begin where I left off. We left civilization (Uyuni, Bolivia) on Friday, taking off with our tour of 7 people and a cook/guide/driver in a old Toyota Land Cruiser. All the other people in our group were from ¨The Land Down Under,¨ 4 of them students from Australia, and one of them a friendly New Zealand-er whose expertise was in flatulence.


Our first stop was a railroad graveyard, right outside the town. In the graveyard there were dozens of rusting trains with graffiti sprayed all over them. Though it was not especially interesting, it did make for some cool pictures behind the old conductor´s seats.

Next we entered the salt flats of Uyuni. The salt flats consist of 12,000 square kilometers of desert-like landscape that contain billions of tons of salt. When it rains, sometimes there is water. Salt and water. And that is all. It is a completely surreal experience. It is said that the salt flats are part of a dried up lake that existed thousands of years ago, and when the lake disappeared it left mineral and salt rich compounds behind. During the rainy season, the water collects and large, very shallow lakes form.


A few small surrounding populations are employed by the salt mines and also make money by selling salt figurines or salt crystals. We visited such a settlement and bought a salt crystal. Then the driver took us to a small area where a family had created an entire restaurant and hostel out of salt bricks. In this area, a few tourists had posted flags of their countries, and Gaizka was proud to see that someone had posted a Basque flag just a few days before we were there, so we took our pictures with it.


Though it is considered somewhat dangerous this time of year due to water deposits left by the rain, we voted, and the driver agreed to take us to what is called La isla del pescado, aka fish´s island. It is really strange to see an island with no water surrounding it, but that´s exactly what this is. The island consists of large brown volcanic rocks that look like coral and many giant cacti. There were also bathrooms and a couple of touristy snack stands. Here Gaizka decided to take the opportunity to play a game of soccer with some Bolivians and Argentineans.

After the driver/guide/cook made us a decent lunch of steak,quinua, tomato and cucumber salad, and bread, we left the fish´s island and drove on through the salt flats. By the late afternoon we reached a small settlement where the tour company had a basic hostel set up. We ate dinner, and then played Monopoly with the kids from Down Under.

The next morning we awoke early at 6am, had breakfast, and set off in the good old Land Cruiser. This day, we visited many different lagoons of various colors and mineral deposits. The most interesting thing about it was that each lagoon had it´s own varieties of flamingos.


The landscape in this area was extremely deserty, with volcanoes and very red rocks and sand. It occurred to both me and Gaizka that it seemed as though we were exploring a different planet, like Mars, or maybe the moon.



Though there were almost no growing species that we could see, we would occasionally come across a herd of alpaca, llama, or vicuña (a deer-like relative of the llama, also an endangered species). We even saw a vicuña chasing away a fox near one of the lagoons!

That evening we came to the next hostel (much colder and more remote than the previous hostel). We played Monopoly again, ate dinner, then played poker with Monopoly money.

Because we had to make a whole day´s trip in one morning before arriving at the Chilean border, we had to awake at 4 am the following morning. Dreary and half asleep, all 7 of us stumbled into the Land Cruiser and we were off. The first stop we made was at some natural geysers that smelled like poo due to all the sulfur. It was freezing cold, and so all we managed was to take a few pictures and then set off again. At one point, the driver stopped the car and informed us that we had reached 4,950 meters, or just over 16,000 feet -- the highest point of our trip.

Next, we came to a natural hot springs. At first I was determined not to get in because it was SO cold outside that I didn´t want to take off my clothes, but after I felt the steamy waters, I decided to go for it. We spent about an hour lounging in the relaxing pool with all the other tourists, and then got out for breakfast.

Right before we reached the border, we drove past what the driver called ¨The Desert of Dalí.¨ Because the giant rocks are so precariously placed among the empty desert, the landscape really does resemble a surreal Dalí painting.

Around 9:30 we came to the border and transferred to a bus that took us down 2,000 meters into the northern Chilean oasis of San Pedro de Atacama. Though it is considered an oasis in the desert, it was extremely dry and HOT! What a change after the literally freezing temperatures of the higher desert. We spent all day there, and in the evening took the night bus to our current location of Arica, Chile.

Arica is on the ocean, and we are really enjoying the mildly warm temperatures and relaxing beach atmosphere here. One of the biggest differences we notice here are the prices -- at times twice or more expensive as Bolivia or even Peru.

Though we have only been here 2 days, we are leaving Chile tomorrow, due to time and money restraints. Back to good old Peru to visit Arequipa and Nazca before we reach Lima once again.

More to come!


Thursday, January 25, 2007

The Country Famous for Having the Highest Everything

AKA Bolivia. That´s right -- the world´s highest navigable lake, city, and capital all lie right here, in this unpretentious country. I´ll begin where I left off: on our way to La isla del sol.

So we arrived in the Bolivian port/border town of Copacabana (no, not related to the one in Brasil) from the Peruvian border. Being a relatively small touristy town, the main feature of Copacabana is it´s location to explore the islands of Lake Titicaca from the Bolivian side. We spent one night in the cheapest, creakiest, most run-down hostel in history (for about $2.50 each), and set of the next morning to get to the island of the sun. We began our journey by meeting up with a couple of Argentineans we had met on our Machu Picchu trek. We decided to do the first leg of the journey by foot, walking some 13 kilometers until we met up with a village man who wanted to take us to the island on his boat. Only later did we discover that his boat was a row boat! We paid him his asking price, 10 bolivianos each (about $1.25) and we set off.

After about one and a half hours enjoying the beautiful day on the lake, we arrived to La isla del sol. By now it was lunch time, so we hiked up to the south side of the island, booked ourselves a hostel, and ate a decent menú of quinua soup (quinua being a small grain similar to rice with a little tail attached -- sounds weird, but is really nutritious. Just ask the Incas, as it has been a staple in their diet for thousands of years), trout, and chicken.

Soon we were off, exploring the trail to the northern end of the island. I should explain at this point that according to ancient Inca legend, the sun island is where the sun was born. It would not be hard to imagine this -- while hiking around the island, the sky, clouds, and sun seem extremely close. Later, we found out that the sun island had left us both a little present: a fairly intense sunburn on our face and neck.

Along the way, we stopped with the Argentineans to enjoy some maté, the strong tea mixture drunk from a gourd that all Argentineans are addicted to.

Continuing our walk, we passed various ruins and small snack huts, and eventually reached the highest peak of the island to enjoy the sunset. At first we were a little disappointed because during our hike a set of clouds had appeared over the western horizon. Little by little, however, we saw the sun drop, and right before it disappeared completely a small gateway appeared in the clouds, allowing for a few moments of intense pink and orange color to escape. Gorgeous!

Our walk back to the hostel was a good 2 hours away, so we took off soon to take advantage of the last few minutes of light. During the last hour of the journey we were in complete darkness, but luckily we had the headlamp I bought Gaizka for Christmas with us. To our amazement, the clouds that had formed earlier were actually the beginning of a big rainstorm coming in from the distance, and about every minute the sky was ablaze with lightening.

After this very long day, we rested well in our hostel.

The next morning we awoke early to catch the boat back to Copacabana. The flurry of clouds had by this time developed into a full-blown rainstorm in the distance, and all the passengers on the boat were transfixed by a small tornado we saw forming a few kilometers off over the middle of the lake.

From Copacabana we made our way to the highest capital in the world: La Paz.

La Paz is truly a unique experience. As traditional as it is modern, this city has markets selling everything from witches potions to deodorant, miniature congressmen figurines to cereals. Women are as likely to be wearing long braids, traditional skirts, and bowler hats as they are to be dressed in a fashionable business suits. Needless to say, we were transfixed.

Here we decided to splurge a little and treat ourselves to a nice double room with cable TV and our own private bathroom with hot water...what a traveller´s paradise! And all for the low price of $7 each. Fantastic.

One interesting feature of La Paz is its shoeshine boys. There are literally hundreds of them, all wearing scary-looking black masks. No, the masks aren´t intended to scare you into a shoeshine, but are rather worn to prevent social stigmatization the boys and men could face if their identity was made known. Due to extreme poverty in La Paz many boys make ends meet by shining, and thus donning the dreary masks.

Sticking with our buddies from Argentina, we went to the movies and saw 007 Casino Royale. It cost $3 to get in -- we were happy to pay 1/3 of the price of a movie ticket in Sonora or San Francisco! Clearly Bolivia has been a relief on our tight budget. The next day we met up again with the Argentineans and went to the ¨mirador,¨ or lookout over the city, giving way to beautiful views. Guess what? It boasts the world´s highest funicular (which we decided to skip). From here we played on the kids swings and went down a toboggan slide several times.

After a few days relaxing and touring the colonial city, we decided to move on. Next stop on the list: Potosi (officially considered the world´s highest city).

Potosi, having seen it´s better days during the mining boom, is not only the highest city of South America, but was also once the richest. Tourists can still visit the old mines, but we opted out and decided to go to the natural hot laguna, just outside the city, instead. To get there, we took a combi bus that dropped us off about a kilometer away from the spring. We hiked up a dusty mountain, rounded some corners, and found the Eye of the Inca, or the main thermal spring. After a thoroughly relaxing dip, we retraced our steps and went back to Potosi.

Our idea was then to visit the city´s museum, but due to extreme torrential downpours (it should be fairly obvious by now that we are travelling in the ¨wet season¨), the place was closed. We didn´t care much, because we were thinking about how wet we were and how the streets now better resembled rivers.

The following morning (this morning in fact!), we took the most hellish 6 hour bus ride to arrive in Uyuni. The road, if it can be called that, is all dirt and high altitude desert. The scenery actually reminded me of the Mojave desert.

Uyuni is the starting point for our 3 day journey to the (yep you guessed it!!) world´s highest (and also biggest) salt flats. The next time I write it will be from Chile.

Over and out!

El viaje mas largo del mundo




Despues de tres meses en sudamerica uno cree que ya esta hecho a todo. No contabamos con el viaje en bus de Potosi a Uyuni. El vehiculo en si hubiese sido considerado una antiguedad alla por la segunda guerra mundial, pero ese no era el problema. Como ya es costumbre se vendieron mas pasajes que asientos haciendo que al menos 10 personas se pasasen las 6 horas del viaje de pie o sentados en el suelo, y por tanto subiendo la temperatura y el odor del autobus considerablemente, pero ese tampoco fue el problema. El problema fue que esas dichosas 6 horas transcurrieron sobre tal patatal que hasta los burros bolivianos se hubiesen negado a recorrer. Parecia que mis huevos estaban haciendo malabares por si solos. Cuando vimos Uyuni en la distancia, un autentico oasis en medio del desierto, fue un gran alivio.

Al de 5 minutos de llegar ya teniamos hostal y 4 posibles agencias para el tour al salar de Uyuni. Decidimos consultarlo con la pizza de Minuteman, un restaurante mas americano que bolviano y que es como un oasis dentro de un oasis. La verdad es que ya echabamos de menos una buena pizza grasienta. La pizza de gorgonzola, peperoni y carne de Llama (picante pero sabrosa) nos aconsejo sabiamente: El tour mas barato. Y eso es lo que hicimos. Salimos mañana a las 10:30am y vamos a estar incomunicados durante 3 dias hasta llegar a San Pedro de Atacama en Chile. Delante de nosotros kms de salares, lagunas y glaciares. Espero que todo salga bien, y que en tres dias estemos escribiendo desde Chile. Nos va a dar pena dejar Bolivia y sus 2$ por habitacion y 1$ por menu, pero que mejor manera que decir adios visitando la atraccion numero 1!.

Adieu

Wednesday, January 24, 2007

Bolivia


Lo mejor de Bolivia son sus precios. Seguimos con mentalidad mochilera, pero por el precio que pagamos en Europa por una litera en una habitacion con 20 pies negros coseguimos una doble en un hotel en condiciones aqui. Y de la comida ni hablar. Truchas del Titicaca por euro y medio.

Es cierto que Bolivia tiene sus encantos, y que hemos dejado lo mejor, el salar de Uyuni, para el final del viaje, pero el no estar preocupados por el presupuesto es una delicia. De hecho La Paz nos gusto mas que Lima, y Copacabana mas que Puno, pero este pais andino no tiene un Cusco, ni un valle sagrado, y desde luego no un Machu Picchu ni nada que se le parezca. Peru sigue siendo el primero.


Hoy llegamos de madrugada a Potosi, una ciudad que vio tiempos mejores y cuya historia esta plagada de cuentos de oro y plata. En algun momento en los siglos XV y XVI llego a ser la ciudad mas importante de America Latina. Hoy esta lejos de tal categoria. La visita estrella numero uno de Potosi son las antiguas minas, pero no son recomendadas para asmaticos o claustrofobicos. Lynz es asmatica y yo clautrofobico asi que decidimos escoger la visita estrella numero dos a los baños termales naturales. Desde luego es una esperiencia el estar en una pequeña laguna con aguas a 30ºC mientras diluvia encima de ti. Asi es, nuestra buena suerte con el tiempo parece llegar a su fin. En los baños no solo no nos molesto si no que añadio al encanto del momento, pero al volver a Potosi si toco un poco los cuyons. De hecho nos impidio llegar a tiempo a la visita estrella numero tres, el museo de la casa de la moneda. Mañana salimos a las 11am a Uyuni. Si tenemos tiempo y ganas lo haremos antes de partir.

De todas maneras ya hay ganas de ver el Salar y sus alrededores.

Un abrazo

Por cierto, la primera foto es en La Paz y la segunda en Potosi

Monday, January 22, 2007

Las islas flotantes y Kontiki

Posiblemente lo que mas me sorprendio del lago titicaca fueron las islas flotantes, tambien llamadas Uros, por el simple hecho de ser artificiales. Y no estoy hablando de obras como Hong Kong o todas esas maravillas japonesas si no de terrenos hechos a base de balsas de Totora, que es el mismo elemento que utilizan para crear sus barcos. Esta gente esta aislada completamente del mundo exterior con excepcion de los turistas que los visitan. Viven de la pesca y la artesania. Suelen alinearse en 6 o 7 familias por isa y tienen tanto espacio como quieren. Si necesitan mas, lo crean. Si quieren un poquito de privacidad cortan su terreno y viven solos como isla. La independencia de la totora.


Todos conocemos la teoria de que los primeros habitantes de polynesia fueron unos sudamericanos con ganas de aventura y que se perdieron por los mares del sur. El noruego Thor Heyerdahl se empeño en demostrarlo haciendo su mitico viaje a bordo del Kontiki en 1947, y que su nieto ha repetido recientemente, creando su bote a base de Totora inspirado en los barcos de estas islas flotantes. Yo tuve la oportunidad de "probar" este instrumento de transporte y no me parecio muy efectivo, aunque si muy comodo.

Island Hopping on the World´s Highest Lake

OK so it might not officially be the world´s highest lake, but Lago Titicaca is among the higest navegable lakes in the world. During this last week, we´ve been island hopping on the Peru and Bolivian sides, visiting a total of 4 islands. Our first experience included a two day, one night trip with a group where we visited 3 islands. The first stop we made was to the reed islands of the Uruos. This was truly a unique experience -- the Uros people, who speak Aymara, are a pre-Inca tribe that have been making their own floating islands for centuries. Living on their own hand made islands means that they don´t have to pay taxes to the government! In reality, the Uros are a group of about 30 islands, a few of which are accessible for tourists to visit. Each island has between 3 and 7 families living there, each with their own reed houses, cooking areas, and often with tourist visiting areas (where the gringos can buy their handmade crafts and replica reed boats). We also noticed that some of them had gardens and solar pannels for energy. Our guide explained to us that if there was an in-island argument, that they would simply cut the island in half, dividing the feuding families, so each half could go it´s own way.

After this curoious and facinating experience, we went to the island of Taquile. The community of about 2,000 Quechua-speaking inhabitants is known for it´s beautiful weaving and kniting. The men on the island are proud to knit their own hats, whose color represents social and marital status. We spent a few hours here admiring the weavings, and then made our way to the third island, Amantani, where we´d be spending the night.

When we arrived, there were various families waiting, each prepared to take in 2 to 4 people from our group as overnight guests. We made the trek up to the top community there, and our host showed us to our room. Very basic, the houses on the island are usually made of mud and straw, later to be covered in cement. After a few hours, we were served our basic meal of soup, rice, and potatoes cooked on a small, wood-burning stove in the kitchen. Later, our host led us upstairs where he dressed us in the traditional skirts, shirts, and ponchos of the island, and we were invited to a community dance with the islanders and our fellow group members. After a few hours of lively folk music and dancing, we went back to our room to sleep.

The next morning, we were in for a surprise. We didn´t know it, but we were lucky enough to have booked our trip to coincide with an important religious ceremony of the Amantani people. After breakfast, we made our way up to the top of the island to the Pachamama (mother earth) temple, more of a ruin, actually, and witnessed the celebration/prayers/ceremony to Pachamama for the successful season of crop growing. On the other side of the mountain, the other half of the island was celebrating and thanking Pachacamac (father earth).

During the ceremony, villagers bring coca leaves as offerrings, each person offerring 3 leaves for which they make 3 wishes. Later, people exchange coca leaves and soda or alcohol amongst themselves. The leader, or priest, eventually burns all the coca leaves in a mass. Later he returns to the sight, and if the ashes are white, it means there will be a good crop year. If the ashes are grey or black, more offerrings must be made to Pacamama in hopes of a good crop year and good rains. Clearly the Amantani people survive on agriculture and tourism, and every family has it´s own crops for their food supplies.

After the ceremony, we witnessed all the islanders sharing various beans, nuts, and corn in a buffet style, and many of us were invited to share in with the feast. After all the festivities, we boarded the boat and made our way back to the shore town of Puno, Peru. In the next post I will discuss La isla del sol (or the sun island) in Bolivia.

La Isla Amantani y la Globalizacion

La Globalizacion es un “shift towards a more integrated and interdependent world economy. Globalization has several different facets including the globalization of markets and the globalization of production”. O al menos esa es la definicion que tuve que aprender en Economia 1 hace ya 5 años.

En mi opinion la globalizacion es una fuerza economica que arrastra intereses monetarios, llevandose por delante tradiciones y costumbres milenarias, creando a su vez un monstruo que cada vez se parece mas a Estados Unidos.

Esta no es una critica a E.E.U.U. porque no me atreveria a devaluar un pais que me ha dado los mejores años de mi vida asi como presentarme a mi futura mujer, pero cuando veo una situacion como la siguiente me pillo un cabreo importante.



Encuentren el error en la foto.

Esta instantanea fue tomada durante una ceremonia anual en la isla Amantani en el lago Titicaca donde sus habitantes adoran a Pachamama, o Madre Tierra, y que tiene un gran significado para ellos. A pesar de lo que pueda parecer, las mujeres no se arreglan de especial manera para este evento, si no que van atuendadas con sus vesitidos habituales, faldas, fajas, camisas y tambien, como no, con sus sombreros o pañuelos. Asi que cuando una de las participantes se presenta llevando una gorra de los Yankees de Nueva York no deja de sorprender.



Despues de la ceremonia no pude evitar el hablar con la chica en cuestion. Resulta que no habla español, tan solo aymara que es un idioma muy importante en la cultura inca ademas de ser oficial en los estados de Peru y Bolivia. Pero lo cierto es que no se puede ir muy lejos solo con el. Y me pregunto yo, ¿como es posible que una persona que no habla español, que seguramente nunca ha salido de una isla donde NO hay electricidad y que probablemente ni siquiera ha oido hablar de una ciudad llamada Nueva York, acabe con una gorra de los Yankees sobre su cabeza durante una de las ceremonias mas importantes de la Isla?.

La globalizacion es un efecto imparable y alcanza lugares que yo me resistia a creer vulnerables como lo es la Isla Amantani. Resulta que en la isla han vivido un numero cercano a 2000 habitantes durante mucha parte de su historia, pero hubo una especie de baby boom en los 80 haciendo llegar la poblacion a los 4000. La mayoria de esta gente se dedica a la agricultura, viviendo de lo que cultiva utilizando tierras heredadas, pero al multiplicarse el numero de personas, esta ultima generacion ha tenido que buscar alternativas. Una de esas alternativas es abandonar la isla y buscar trabajos en Puno o Juliaca, ciudades importantes cercanas al lago y que por desgracia sucumbieron al poder estadounidense hace ya tiempo. Estos jovenes regresan a su tierra natal durante este tipo de celebraciones trayendo con ellos elementos dispersores como la jodida gorra, influenciando a los que deciden quedarse.

Estados Unidos personifica el imperialismo actual. Lo que hicieron los europeos en los siglos XVI y XVII lo estan haciendo los americanos en el XXI. Solo que en esta ocasion en vez de utilizar mosquetes y morteros se valen de hamburguesas y zapatillas de deporte.

Lo mas triste de todo es que Estados Unidos no esta solo, quizas sea el ejemplo mas claro, pero muchas potencias mundiales le siguen a corta distancia. Adidas, Nokia, Sony me vienen a la cabeza, pero los verdaderos culpables no son las grandes compañias que llevan ya tiempo descontroladas, si no el consumidor medio que tiene el poder de parar esto. Parece que todos hemos antepuesto la comodidad ante la originalidad. Yo todavia tengo esperanzas.