News from "the" Isolda La Paz Bolivia
On December 14, 2008 9:20 p.m.
I give this song to this message here because it often gives the diminutive names, mine is Isoldita, and also we put a "the" or "the" before the name When it comes to talking to someone in a rather familiar .... Then "the" Isolda, or "the" Iseult, as they say in Quebec, I have heard often lately. Porfirio, with whom I traveled to Iquique, has often been called that. It still surprises me when I hear it, but you get used ...
I return from Chile, the city of Iquique, where the most important port in the north of Santiago. A free zone, created to attract the trade of products of any kind to much of South America, especially Bolivia, which has no access to the sea and whose border is at 3.30 drive. Mainly used clothing trade, the "ropa americana" and U.S. vehicles, Correena, Chinese ...
Starting by bus from La Paz, Oruro direction, to join my contact for my reporting on the clothing, Porfirio Challapa, an importer of Bolivia, which has its warehouse in Iquique in Chile and its outlet in Oruro in Bolivia, I saw my big accident involving a bus. This route is deemed dangerous because few large and slightly sloped to drain water during heavy rains.
This Monday there at 18 o'clock I was to meet Porfirio to go to Iquique with him. Here is an overview of the reassuring atmosphere that reigned at my arrival in the market area (see photos of the previous message to understand the difference) of Kantuta and await the arrival of Porfirio facing the door of his tienda.
To give you an idea, the same picture, but the next morning, Tuesday, the day market.
Although this is not market day, this man carries a bundle of used clothing. Here in Oruro in the market district Kantuta, it is a daily trading.
Finally Porfirio is welcome to meet me, with 45 minutes late, with its 4x4 Used imported from China, but to tell me you would not go the next day to Iquique. He accompanied me back to the hotel and we arranged to meet Tuesday at 10am at the tienda. His clothing store in this neighborhood roughly once dismal night.
The next morning, do not now that I come across bags of congress and event that took place in 2003 and 2005 in Montreal. The red and beige. Not having the desire to buy, I ask to take pictures. The link is there actually used items that are found in Oruro, Bolivia and are distributed throughout Bolivia thereafter, or even to Brazil, Paraguay and Argentina, through smuggling.
Porfirio's warehouse in Oruro, it is here that sells the bales importance itself of the United States. This is one of the largest importers of Bolivia. His company is named Importadora Atlantida and these balls are identified with these labels, not by any cons. While walking through the market in Oruro, I saw a lot of balls his company, as well as company Vinex, Chiron and Classic SPINDEX, Canadian importers based in Iquique.
I even picked up the label Importadora Atlantida walking the floor that morning before leaving, without knowing it was his in the aim to inform me thereafter. When I knew it was his company arrived in Iquique, no need to ask me if I was with the right person, I knew I had the best contact I could not have.
Leaving Oruro, this mining town in the altiplano to go to the mountains of Chile ....
Mountains in northern Chile, called the Cordillera de la Costa.
The city of Iquique, approximately 250 000 inhabitants.
beach ...
Harbour View free zone .... could not go nearer than this to take a better picture, I do not feel secure, surrounded saoûlons who looked at my camera!
The commercial center of the zone, where they made purchases without taxes.
My friend Cathy, a native of Santiago, Iquique and working in this small hotel, far from her two children because she probation. She has just been released after three years in prison for cocaine trafficking. At 21, she was pregnant with her second when she was arrested and sentenced to five years. She told me that being in a difficult economic situation, she made the gaffe will make lots of money quickly. The transport of drugs from Iquique to Santiago is very important. The city of Iquique is populated by people quite dangerous because it is the busiest port in the country criminalized.
Here's what they were discharged Wednesday morning in a warehouse Porfirio. All this and much else, will reorder, regraded and repackaged through the work of about 10 people and will leave within a week to Bolivia.
clothing sorters. Apparently they did not seem pleased that I take pictures. In back, the green machine is used to pack clothing in plastic balls. This class women's shoes in pairs.
Down here, the warehouse of the importer Canadian Classic, whose boss works out of Toronto. Clothing purchased in the Toronto area, will leave the port of New York and Vancouver, Vancouver or Seattle.
All company bosses are walking and driving 4x4 Used imported from the United States, China and Korea. Certainly the most lucrative trade free zone of Iquique. We import the same vehicle where the driver is right!
Two small dogs twins who have made their nest in the maze of warehouse Porfirio.
the background Porfirio white shirt is the owner and its employees.
clothes are dumped cargo arrived in the port of New York. Clothes Northern United States are much more popular with importers in the South. The population is richer in the cities of New York, Washington and Seattle, as Miami and Houston for example.
Today is Friday, the clothes are delivered on trucks to begin their journey to Bolivia. Chilean carriers make the trip to the border, unload, and take over Bolivian smugglers in the border villages. That's why we say that these villages live only in smuggling of clothing and other goods, drugs, cars, stolen goods, etc..
Here a buying wholesale clothing ensures that the bullets of the clothes she bought this week are well placed on the truck. It ensures the transport of his goods.
activity is at its peak on Friday night in the neighborhood of used clothing, as in that of cars on Friday afternoon. Carriers benefit from the weekend to cross the border. Saturdays and Sundays, effective at the border are much less important.
Porfirio, my contact importer of clothing after eating a whole crab.
Here on the boxes that I saw being unloaded, it is clearly written "donation". They are objects of any kind. Mainly trinkets.
The mountains bordering the zone.
Behind those closed doors, warehouse Porfirio.
Gonzman Luis Avenue, in the free zone, where is several warehouses clothing.
Night falls, the trucks will soon be ready to go.
The same evening I left Iquique to return to La Paz. That night there was a beautiful full moon and clear weather allowed me to see from my window on the bus, all loaded trucks spun toward the border.
The landscape of Chile, the next morning. It is a journey of more than 15 hours.
The transition from the Chilean border.
Here Picana in question, a kind of stew with three meats, pork, beef and Chicken, corn and the famous "chunos" These dehydrated potato found in several Bolivian dishes. 
Here we are Michael and me posing with this beautiful calendar (Which also included a CD and incense), Michael received during our exchange of gifts with a value of approximately 20 Bol. (Less than 4) $! 
Howard, a Briton, who is also the boyfriend of April, an American. Both work in La Paz for over a year. 
the top of my balcony, I attended the Christmas fanfare on parade on my street around noon on Christmas Day. 
At our friends John and Lindsay, 25 at night. Lindsay is the first Australian in history married to a Bolivian! He is an archaeologist. I met him the first day I moved into the neighborhood, a public holiday. I returned from running errands and I climbed the street markets for hours. Exhausted, I stopped drinking a cold beer at the Blue Note, coffee bar with his wife outside of the city that day. We quickly hit it and I then presented to Michael, my roommate Australian. Since they know they are always happy to meet up! 
Michael, right, John, left. 
