La Paz Bolivia

Hi All,

I have had a few emails from you lucky lucky lot asking about what is going on in my strange little country, so here explainith i...

Bolivia has the 2nd, repeat, 2nd largest natural gas supplies in the whole of South America, after Venezuela (remember those corrupt bastard policemen..) which many people would see as quite a good thing really....BUT...don’t forget this is Bolivia!

The country is strange beyond most of our comprehension. Imagine thousands upon thousands of people marching down Oxford Street, or throwing dynamite at No. 10, or setting up road blocks around the M25 and trying to stop anything getting in and out of London. That is what this is like.

Well, I say is BUT they actually made a decision last night on a new temporary President who will take the country into new elections. Gladly he was the one that almost everyone wanted which means no more strikes, and the road blocks can get lifted. Hopefully.

The troubles have come about, not solely due to, BUT mainly because of the international gas companies, (I am glad most people don’t know what the ‘B’ in BP stands for round here), as they get a large chunk of the money from the gas and Bolivia gets hardly anything. This is why a lot of the people marching are calling for the nationalisation of the gas. BUT these international companies have put up nearly every penny for this so they are kind of unwilling to just surrender everything and naff off.

SO at this precise moment (unless you have left it a few weeks to check your emails) things seem slowly to be getting back to normal. Slowly.

Fingers crossed and all that what...



Matt
Bolivian Correspondent