Goodbye Bolivia
It’s hard to believe it, but nearly 5 months have past since I left Canada and came here to Bolivia -this beautiful, incredible country full of diversity, culture and history. I had initially thought that after my contract in December I would travel through Peru, Argentina and Brazil while here in South America; however, in the end I decided to stay in Bolivia and enjoy all the natural beauties this country has to offer. I actually only left Bolivia for once for one day when I did a speedy boarder crossing to get a new tourist visa in order to stay for another couple months. I am quite happy I decided to make this choice as it has allowed me to better get to know the country and of course further enjoy the company of all the wonderful people I have been surrounded by here in Bolivia - both friends and family!
Like so often in my life I feel once again blessed to have had such the wonderful opportunities and experiences. Over the last few months I have visited some amazing places and have made some incredible friendships along the way, those which I intend to maintain for a very long time. The last month has been no exception to this rule, as it has been jam packed with such experiences and interactions.
My mom left Bolivia the end of January from Santa Cruz. From there I decided to stay in Santa Cruz and experience their wild and crazy Carnaval. I stayed with Jenelle, and her great room-mate from Brazil, Danillo. (Jenelle, is a friend I met back in Camrose, who has been working here for the past 6months as an intern) I stayed for Carnaval, plus an extra week to better get to know the city.
We spent an amazing four days in the streets of downtown Santa Cruz, dancing it up around the clock to various live bands, thoroughly enjoying the festivities of Carnaval! Never have I ever seen or experienced such madness. At one moment during the Carnaval I felt as though I was in the movie the Matrix, as everyone is constantly throwing water balloons, shooting water guns with water or paint and often also spraying coloured foam at each other. Seriously at times it felt like absolute CHAOS! But nonetheless A LOT of fun, and never in my life I have I ever danced so much.
Apart from my time in Santa Cruz (close to 2 weeks), over the last month I also spent a great deal of time with Ali and Arnd (my sister and her partner) in Cochabamba. It was great as after Carnaval I was pretty tired out and managed to run down the immune system(got a bit of a throat infection). Due to this I really appreciated the very slow pace of life in Cocha, as its muuuuy tranquilo!
Finally last week I managed to throw a short trip to La Paz to say goodbye to my participants and close friends there! Of course no visit to La Paz wouldn’t be complete without a trip to Sarganaga(the main tourist street, full of all the most beautiful llama sweaters, scarves, ponchos, etc.) and my favorite Sushi Place in Bolivia - New Tokyo.
After a couple days in La Paz, I finally bid farewell and flew to Sucre, which in my opinion is Bolivia’s most beautiful city. In Sucre I met up with Ali, my sister, to celebrate her 25th birthday. It was great, we did all the sights, managed to see most of the city’s museums and walked all around the beautiful old part of the city. Then on Sunday after a great night of dancing at a local nightclub for Ali’s birthday, we headed to Potosi and from there went straight to the nearby Aguas Termales (hot springs). The first set of many hot springs we visited was nonetheless located in a volcanic crater, know as The Ojo de Inca. It’s hard to believe it but we were actually swimming in the natural hot springs of a volcano at around 4000m in altitude with an incredible view of the surrounding mountains! After we found a place to stay in a nearby village, where the main source of income appeared to be the hot springs abundant in the area, as there were about 5 hot springs centers you could chose to bathe in. We went to one that night before heading to bed and then one in the morning around 8am, where we were fortunate to have had the entire pool to ourselves! It was unbelievable for the mere cost of 2.5 Bolivianos, approximately 30 cents Canadian!
We also managed to squeeze in a quick half-day mine tour, where we walked, crawled and climbed to the depths of Bolivia's famous Cerro Rico- a mountain full of minerals. It was an intense tour, as we descended deeper and deeper into the mine, I couldnt believe the conditions that which the workers endure on a regular basis. I have no idea how they do it and cant believe these types of working conditions still exist. Alarmingly I noticed at the mine museum that the highest percentage of foreign owned mines in BOlivia is Canada. I am sure a statistic we should not be too proud about!
After it was back to Cochabamba for us, since Ali had classes and I had a few bags to pack, in order to get ready for my journey back home in a matter of day... The next day I was on my LAST overnight bus ( yippee!), where approximately 12 hours later I arrived in the hot and tropical city of Santa Cruz de la Sierra! I saw everyone I wanted to see today, as all of my friends here in Santa Cruz came to my despededia (farewell party)! If you could believe we went out for Sushi to celebrate and then later we tried to find a place to dance. Unfortunately we were unsuccessful and didn’t find a good place to dance, as it was Thursday and apparently that isn’t a good night to go out here. So in lieu of our bad luck the gang all agreed to try again tomorrow night, my very last night here in Bolivia! Here’s hoping a good place to dance will be ready for us tomorrow, as I would really like to have one more fun night out dancing, before I return to Canada where salsa nights are just not quite the same somehow? I will miss you Bolivia. Goodbye Bolivia! Gracias por todo!
Like so often in my life I feel once again blessed to have had such the wonderful opportunities and experiences. Over the last few months I have visited some amazing places and have made some incredible friendships along the way, those which I intend to maintain for a very long time. The last month has been no exception to this rule, as it has been jam packed with such experiences and interactions.
My mom left Bolivia the end of January from Santa Cruz. From there I decided to stay in Santa Cruz and experience their wild and crazy Carnaval. I stayed with Jenelle, and her great room-mate from Brazil, Danillo. (Jenelle, is a friend I met back in Camrose, who has been working here for the past 6months as an intern) I stayed for Carnaval, plus an extra week to better get to know the city.
We spent an amazing four days in the streets of downtown Santa Cruz, dancing it up around the clock to various live bands, thoroughly enjoying the festivities of Carnaval! Never have I ever seen or experienced such madness. At one moment during the Carnaval I felt as though I was in the movie the Matrix, as everyone is constantly throwing water balloons, shooting water guns with water or paint and often also spraying coloured foam at each other. Seriously at times it felt like absolute CHAOS! But nonetheless A LOT of fun, and never in my life I have I ever danced so much.
Apart from my time in Santa Cruz (close to 2 weeks), over the last month I also spent a great deal of time with Ali and Arnd (my sister and her partner) in Cochabamba. It was great as after Carnaval I was pretty tired out and managed to run down the immune system(got a bit of a throat infection). Due to this I really appreciated the very slow pace of life in Cocha, as its muuuuy tranquilo!
Finally last week I managed to throw a short trip to La Paz to say goodbye to my participants and close friends there! Of course no visit to La Paz wouldn’t be complete without a trip to Sarganaga(the main tourist street, full of all the most beautiful llama sweaters, scarves, ponchos, etc.) and my favorite Sushi Place in Bolivia - New Tokyo.
After a couple days in La Paz, I finally bid farewell and flew to Sucre, which in my opinion is Bolivia’s most beautiful city. In Sucre I met up with Ali, my sister, to celebrate her 25th birthday. It was great, we did all the sights, managed to see most of the city’s museums and walked all around the beautiful old part of the city. Then on Sunday after a great night of dancing at a local nightclub for Ali’s birthday, we headed to Potosi and from there went straight to the nearby Aguas Termales (hot springs). The first set of many hot springs we visited was nonetheless located in a volcanic crater, know as The Ojo de Inca. It’s hard to believe it but we were actually swimming in the natural hot springs of a volcano at around 4000m in altitude with an incredible view of the surrounding mountains! After we found a place to stay in a nearby village, where the main source of income appeared to be the hot springs abundant in the area, as there were about 5 hot springs centers you could chose to bathe in. We went to one that night before heading to bed and then one in the morning around 8am, where we were fortunate to have had the entire pool to ourselves! It was unbelievable for the mere cost of 2.5 Bolivianos, approximately 30 cents Canadian!
We also managed to squeeze in a quick half-day mine tour, where we walked, crawled and climbed to the depths of Bolivia's famous Cerro Rico- a mountain full of minerals. It was an intense tour, as we descended deeper and deeper into the mine, I couldnt believe the conditions that which the workers endure on a regular basis. I have no idea how they do it and cant believe these types of working conditions still exist. Alarmingly I noticed at the mine museum that the highest percentage of foreign owned mines in BOlivia is Canada. I am sure a statistic we should not be too proud about!
After it was back to Cochabamba for us, since Ali had classes and I had a few bags to pack, in order to get ready for my journey back home in a matter of day... The next day I was on my LAST overnight bus ( yippee!), where approximately 12 hours later I arrived in the hot and tropical city of Santa Cruz de la Sierra! I saw everyone I wanted to see today, as all of my friends here in Santa Cruz came to my despededia (farewell party)! If you could believe we went out for Sushi to celebrate and then later we tried to find a place to dance. Unfortunately we were unsuccessful and didn’t find a good place to dance, as it was Thursday and apparently that isn’t a good night to go out here. So in lieu of our bad luck the gang all agreed to try again tomorrow night, my very last night here in Bolivia! Here’s hoping a good place to dance will be ready for us tomorrow, as I would really like to have one more fun night out dancing, before I return to Canada where salsa nights are just not quite the same somehow? I will miss you Bolivia. Goodbye Bolivia! Gracias por todo!
posted by Laura | 4:40 PM
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