By Nayana Manjari Dasi
The highest capital city in the world
On September 18th we celebrated ISKCON’s 50th anniversary with the first of the two padayatra we had planned. It was held in the city of Nuestra Señora de La Paz (translated as ‘Our Lady of Peace’) which has an estimated 789, 541 residents. It’s the third-most populated city in Bolivia, and the highest capital city in the world with an elevation of 3650 meters above sea level. There is hardly any flat terrain in that city –everything is either uphill or downhill. When people say that they are ‘walking uphill’ they usually refer to a small incline, but this is not the case in La Paz where uphill means a very steep incline. So, when we were planning the route for this padayatra the main request from the congregational devotees of La Paz (who all participated) was that we please walk downhill.
Our one-day padayatra team consisted of 28 devotees: 25 Bolivian nationals and 3 visiting devotees: Nila Chala Chandra Dasa from Brazil, Advaita Thakur Dasa from Peru and Jagadbhandu Dasa from Argentina. Altogether there were 9 grhasta men, 10 grhasti women, 1brahmacari, 3 vanaprasthis, 4 teenagers and 1 young child. During the procession, we carried a palanquin with a neem deity of Lord Caitanya named Gauranga Mahaprabhu; we also had several banners, one with an image of Srila Prabhupada, another with the ‘ISKCON 50th Anniversary’ logo and one with the maha-mantra.
Unexpected padayatri
Our team met at 8:30am in front of the Municipal Zoo in Mallasa, a suburb in the outskirts of La Paz. The plan was to walk 15 kilometers from Mallasa to the town of Mecapaca in the south. We began walking at 9am accompanied by a support vehicle carrying provisions. First, we walked along the Rio Abajo Highway to the village of Jupapina in a place called the ‘Valley of Flowers’. From there we walked to the village of Huajchilla doing harinam all the way. We noticed that a small dog had joined our padayatra party just outside of Jupapina. When he first saw us he watched us for a few moments and then he ran across the street very enthusiastically to join us. This little dog stayed with us for most of the way and would chase away any other dogs who tried to bark at the devotees.
Not quite downhill all the way
One part of the road on which we were travelling was in a very arid region with mountains made of sandstone that, having been eroded by the wind, left tall spires in the earth. We then crossed the Irpavi River and started to make our way uphill towards Huajchilla. We really tried to only walk downhill but some uphill travel was inevitable. As it was a very hot day we made a pause halfway up the hill to have some watermelon and drink some water.
After resting for a while we descended into another valley. The landscape changed, becoming greener and more beautiful. We continued to sing with devotees taking turns to lead the kirtana. Once we passed Huajchilla we walked to an agricultural community known as Valencia where we rested for about 15 minutes in a shady park. Just as we were nearing Valencia the little dog who was following us decided to turn around and go home He had been a great companion, easily accepting the water and prasadam we fed him. We then carried on walking to the town of Mecapaca.
Chanting in the square
When we finally reached Mecapaca at 3pm, all the padayatris chanted loudly until we got to the main square. We all sat down on the square and Jagadbhandu Dasa, a sankirtana leader from South America, gave a class on the importance of sankirtana. He encouraged all the congregational devotees to also participate in harinama and distributing Srila Prabhupada’s books. Jagadbhandu Dasa stressed that everyone can and should participate and that it was no longer only temple devotees and brahmacharis who had this service. Afterwards, we took lunch prasadam and then made our way to some minibus taxis which took us back to Mallasa and La Paz, thus ending Bolivia’s first ever padayatra.
An Angel is passing!
The overall reaction from people was curiosity. A procession such as this was unusual there and therefore many people were too shy to participate. All in all, people were positive even though it was strange to them. Actually, the reason why we thought to take just Lord Gauranga with us is because the people are mostly catholic and in their tradition, they sometimes take an image of the Virgin Mary or another saint out onto the street as well. So, we considered if they just see Lord Gauranga that they might not find it so odd and perhaps they would be able to accept Him more easily, which is exactly what happened. We even heard one passerby who very happily exclaimed, while indicating Lord Caitanya, “Look, there’s an Angel!”
During the padayatra, we distributed 20 small books,200 maha-cookies and 200 flyers with the maha mantra and the temple contact details. All the devotees were very inspired by this padayatra, and we are looking forward to doing one every year from now on.
