La Cruces-Sun News reported today about an interview between Associated Press and Evo Morales regarding a new film portraying his life and how he became the president of Bolivia.

The article reports on how he was beaten by police on several occasions, once even being thrown out the back of a van.

It is probably experiences like this that has prompted him to call for all U.S. military personnel to leave Bolivia, as well as other foreign troops.

On the one hand there must be a certain amount of satisfaction to be in charge of the same people, who once treated him as a criminal, but is it not a bit early to make a feature film out of the story?

I thought that was something that was done after someone’s time as president. Or am I missing something here?

If you want to stay in touch with the rest of the world during a visit to Bolivia, you will inevitably find your way to an internet café. In Sucre there were several during my visit, and I also used one in La Paz. Although I am sure that there have been improvements since, there was a noticeable difference in the service quality between the different cafés.

A new internet café being built in Sucre, July 2000

Firstly, the connection in La Paz was much faster and more stable than in Sucre – I think the hardware was probably newer as well.

In Sucre, those cafés affiliated to the national telecommunications provider, Entelnet, definitely appeared to be faster.

La Paz was slightly more expensive, but all the caf̩s I visited offered good value for money Рexcept one. A smaller, private internet caf̩ in Sucre (I think it was in the Calle Audencia) was so slow, that I was unable to read my webmail. As I left, I spotted a 56k modem at work and guess that the network was probably sharing this one analogue line.

As with any public computer, security is an important issue when using these facilities.  It is worth learning how to clear a web browser cache and cookies beforehand, as the computers may just be standard installations and not use any special software to reset them after one customer has finished as is common in European countries.