Bolivia records: Aymara herder is 123 years old
http://bigstory.ap.org/article/bolivia-records-aymara-herder-123-years-old
FRASQUIA, Bolivia (AP) If Bolivia's public records are correct, Carmelo Flores Laura is the oldest living person ever documented.
They say he turned 123 a month ago.
The native Aymara lives in a straw-roofed dirt-floor hut in an isolated hamlet near Lake Titicaca at 13,100 feet (4,000 meters), is illiterate, speaks no Spanish and has no teeth.
He walks without a cane and doesn't wear glasses. And though he speaks Aymara with a firm voice, one must talk into his ear to be heard.
"I see a bit dimly. I had good vision before. But I saw you coming," he tells Associated Press journalists who visit after a local TV report touts him as the world's oldest person.
Hobbling down a dirt path, Flores greets them with a raised arm, smiles and sits down on a rock. His gums bulge with coca leaf, a mild stimulant that staves off hunger. Like most Bolivian highlands peasants, he has been chewing it all his life. ............