Bolivia

Crossed the border at dawn, into a little town with a dirt road and a statue of Simon Bolivar, el liberador, who sent his general to push the Spanish back into the sea and created a new nation, which named itself in his honour.

As we wait for a cafe to open by the park, the church’s speakers crackle alive and sing gregorian hymns as people shuffle sleepily to work. We take a monstorous bus down bumpy roads choking on the dust and the heat. But its only a couple of hours to Tupiza, houses burnt the same colour as the dirt by the sun. Here and in every town are the offices of the Evo Morales’ party Movement Towards Socialism (MAS) painted blue and written large: Evo: El Presidente (tick).

This is heartland, people with no posessions to lose and everything to gain from the president’s party. So far the ‘nationalisation’ of the hydrocarbon sector (a buyback whatever most of the media say, whether its going to be a fair buy or not is another question) and a lot of talk about the redistribution of land which has in turn lead to murmerings of civil war from the landowners in the wealthier east of the country.

Bolivar famously wrote in the final days of his life “those who serve a revolution plough the sea”, how much more he would have despaired if he knew that the country with his name has had by some estimates almost 200 coups since independence from the Spanish in 1825.