Bolivia - Snazzy Santa Cruz

That Congolese station was FANTASTIC. Sorry Namibia, the DRC beat ya for best African station... so far.

We haven't visited South America in a little while. What say we head to Bolivia? 


We're gonna go ahead and warn y'all, the Bolivians must be WAY into DJ chatter, 'cause Pinky couldn't find one that doesn't have a ridiculous amount of talking. Even the classical stations. Just fair warning.

Named after Simón Bolívar, the man who led six South American nations to independence from the Spanish, Bolivia declared independence in 1825. Since then they've lost over half of their land to adjoining states as a result of war, including their access to the sea. One can still get to the Atlantic via the Paraguay River, but for real, this is bummer, y'all. They do have the highest capitol in the world and VAST mineral wealths to make up for their water problems. 

What a surprisingly handsome freedom fighter!

Pinky remembers reading once that the Spanish pulled so much silver out of Bolivia during the colonial period that they created horrible inflationary problems in Spain and that it was one of the first instances in economic history. In the late 1800's the world looked to Bolivia for gold and in the 20th century eyed it's tin. And, today we look towards it once again for its lithium deposits - we've got make sure our cell phone batteries stay charged.

We know you're getting the impression that they're a rich country. Well, stop it! That mineral and natural gas wealth historically hasn't made it to the populace. Evo Morales' promise to remedy that discrepancy has helped get him elected. After dealing with the painful liberalization of the economy in the 80's and 90's, we're sure a lot of folks flock to that ideal.

OK, so today we're tuning in to the city of Santa Cruz de la Sierra. Santa Cruz is a the fashion and modeling hub of Bolivia. However, of more interest is the fact that the city's streets are layed out in concentric circles. The oldest part of the city is encircled by the first ring. One the map below you can see the grid of the old city pretty clearly. Each anillo - or ring road - is numbered and separates each suburbs and neighborhoods. We're all about crazy road configurations and this is right up our alley! Haha! Puns.

View Larger Map

Alrighty. We hope Radio Activa kicks off your weekend well. Grab your gold deposits, practice driving in literal circles and tune in to hear some quality South American radio! We'll see your face on Monday! Enjoy!

Radio Activa

Tune in Here

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Venezuela - Crack-a-lackin' Caracas

Wow! That Malawian station has to have been one of the best so far, huh?

OK, what do you say we head to Venezuela today? Pinky's dad went down to Caracas on some junket when he was in his 20's. He always insinuates that he partied pretty hard there. That's funny to imagine for a couple of reasons: 1) it's Pinky's dad, and 2) we don't really think of Caracas as a party destination. That's probably due to our current governments' friction but maybe things were different back then.

Fancy Caracas!

Pinky's dad reports that the income inequality was very apparent. Wonder what it's like after Chavez's "revolution." Pinky's brother did a show down there a few years ago and the government almost commandeered all their sound equipment. Yikes. We forget the details but we don't think he was too enthused about it. 

Hmmmm. Not so fancy.

Pinky does remember that his brother's hotel was right across the way from Chavez's compound and that he saw his helicopters. SIIIGH. It must be pretty rad to have a helicopter. Pinky used to draw them all the time in elementary school.

<We really wish we had a Pinky original helicopter drawing to put here. Circa 1993, of course.>

Chavez in his 'copter. Getting in? Jumping out? Just showing off that fancy red shirt?

On a side but not unrelated note, when Pinky was 10 or 11 years old he bid $20 and won an auction for a ride in a little private plane from some guy at his church. And, that blowhole never took him! $20 is a lot of money at that age - it's like 2 months worth of allowance! Who stiffs a kid out of $20 AND a plane ride at a charity fundraiser? It's 15 years later and he's still pissed. If he ever see him again, he's gonna say "Listen up cool-whip! Where's my plane ride?" Yeah, that's what he'll say...

Long story short, Estrella FM comes blaring out of Caracas at 91.9 FM and it's gonna make you want to dance! Enjoy, y'all!

Estrella

Hit Radio en Vivo in the top right corner

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Chile - Chords from Chonchi

Man, that Namibian station turned out to be awesome, huh? The stuff late in the day kinda sucked, but that was their Friday night "party jam mix" show or something like that, so we gotta forgive them for it. However, we might be able to forgive them for their "Abortion is a Crime" reggae jam. Ellen was totally traumatized - minding her own business, jamming out, when WHAM! She was slapped up side the head with someone else's religious/political views. Keep 'em to yourself, y'all.

Keeping that one aural assault aside, we'll definitely keep that station around!

Ok, today let's head down to Chile! Like 'ol Kilgore Trout once said, "It must be nice to be from such a long and narrow country." And, honestly, who could disagree?

We're gonna head to Chonchi on Isla Chiloé. 

ooooooooooooooooo, prettttty

Pinky's ex-boyfriend spent about a month on this island. A giant volcano erupted while he was down there. Pinky read about the explosion in the paper thinking it was way further south, but when he looked it up he found out it was only a few dozen miles away! --insert panic here-- Not the kinda thing you want to find out when your lover has limited internet access. It's a fucking VOLCANO. Anyway, they weren't close enough to be in any real danger, but he did bring back a bunch of pumice rocks made when the ash hit the water. Their weight completely belies their size. You can float them!

This may or may not be THE volcano... but isn't it stunning?

Moving on.

Although the food is supposed to be bland and horrible (mostly unseasoned mutton and potatoes), everyone we know that's visited says that you've gotta make it down there. Pinky's brother says that Santiago is one of the coolest, hippest cities he's ever been to, and he's seen just about every city with a concert venue. There's supposed to be a pretty libertine sexual revolution going on there as well. Good food, good music, good sex? Sign us up, please!

With a fat demographic dividend almost of working age, and with the fantastic way they're managing their copper exports (nationalized, and Chile is by far the world's largest producer. It has admirably avoided the resource curse while maintaining a dynamic economy), Chile stands to become a much bigger name in the coming decades. Just tell folks you heard it here first.

So, with out further adieu, let's tune in and see what they're up to now...

Radio San Carlos de Chonchi

Una Radio de Hoy Inicio

(Click on the gaudy "San Carlos on line" headphones button right under the menu bar and to the right.)

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Suriname - Pulsing Paramarbio

How did you like that peak into the Hermit Kingdom? Pinky liked how they called South Korea a puppet every time they mentioned it. We also really didn't expect there to be so much international coverage, either. The music was so antiquated, too! A bizarre glimpse at a bizarre nation.

Today we're going to head to a country that we have to admit that Pinky wasn't aware of and that Ellen thought was in Africa (so much for being a geography buff, eh?), which is kinda embarrassing because it's a relatively close neighbor with a sizable land mass. 

Suriname! (See, it obviously exists and is in South America.)

It's home to less than 500,000 people, which means that our postage stamp-sized District of Columbia has more folks living in it. Think about it: Suriname is 64,000 square miles, while DC is only 61 square miles.

Anyway, apparently it's a Dutch-speaking former colony and is one of the most ethnically and culturally diverse countries in the world. There are descendant’s from pretty much everywhere. Here is the list of it's official languages, all 18 of them...

• Dutch
• Sranan Tongo
• Hindi
• English
• Sarnami
• Javanese
• Malay
• Bhojpuri
• Hakka
• Cantonese
• Saramaccan
• Paramaccan
• Ndyuka
• Kwinti
• Matawai
• Cariban
• Arawakan
• Kalina

80% of the country is unspoiled rain forest, too, which is pretty rad, huh? And get this: it's one of only three countries in the world where a mosque and a synagogue are located next to each other! Isn't that kinda fucked up? Yeah, we thought so, too. The other two countries with neighboring mosques and synagogues are Bosnia and Herzegovina, which we visited last week, and Bulgaria. 

So let's head on down to Suriname and see what we've been missing, eh?

Radio 10 Magic FM

Hurm... They keep cutting to some speech instead of the music, so feel free to visit this one too:

Radio Zon

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Ecuador - Lyrical Loja

Man, that Antarctic station was auditory chloroform, huh? Zzzzzzz... No wonder nobody lives there!

So we got a request for a station from the Galapagos Islands, but Pinky can't find a streaming station. He was looking for 1410 AM, La Vox de Galapagos - mostly because of how awesome the name is – but the search was in vein.

Good news! He did find Super Láser FM, and you really can't find a much better name than that, huh? AmIright? AmIright? Yeah, I'm right.

So, long story short, let's head to Ecuador! Super Láser FM broadcasts from the cultural center of Ecuador, Loja. There's not much more to say about Loja other than they have these cool gates and the Pan-American Highway zips past them.

Loja City Gates

If you're really set on the Galapagos, supposedly Radio Caravana broadcasts to them from the mainland. Just click on "Transmisión en Vivo" in the menu bar. They were playing music earlier, but we think they're stuck on a morning show (as far as we can tell from our rusty Spanish). Also, Ellen can't make their station work at all. And, they're not named Super Láser. We think your decision is obvious...

Super Láser FM

On the ride out there, check out Lauren Frohne's awesome Living Galapagos project!

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Party in Paraguay?

Man, that Malaysian radio station kinda sucked last time, huh? It picked up a little in the afternoon, but those DJ's doing the same not-even-funny prank calls at every interlude made Pinky want to grind up his eyeballs and pour the slurry into his ear canals.

Anyway, let's move on to Paraguay today! Pinky’s gotta leave for Tennessee in a little bit so he won't be able to hang out and listen all day… but hey! You guys go ahead and have fun at your work stations without him. Let us know how it goes!

Emisoras Paraguay

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