My Journey Round The World

As already said, I would’t be a teacher for kindergarden or primary school… So on Tuesday I escaped school and went to one of the biggest market in Bolivia: Punata – said to be one of the most beautiful and authentic one. Chichicastenango in Guatemala is really small compare to it! You can find literally everything there! From underwear to shoes, cow to pig – did you already hear a pig screeming?! It’s awful!!! – fruits and vegetables – of course plenty of potatoes – I always wonder if typical clothes and hat were one day new, I got the answer!

After a local soup in a typical Chicha, I headed back to Cochabamba stopping on my way in Tarata, typical village of the Alto Valley. Such a peaceful atmosphere with local architecture after the market

Did you already hear a pig screeming?! It's awful!!!

clic on the picture below to hear the sound! 

Thanks to Sister Adeline, I currently graciously sleep and eat at Casa Buen Samaritano. This place hosts sick people who leave far away, have poor resources and/or doesn’t have family to take care of them.  Sunday we had the xmas party with people from SOLIDARIDAD coming for lunch and presents exchange The morning was dedicated to the preparation of the meal… A paella! As most of you know, I don’t like to cook but love to eat However, it was great to participate in cooking this giant meal for around 40 people! 

Of course, as it is a catholic organisation there was a mess – a priest came especialy for it, but I escape this part… Helping is enough for me. Just before lunch all residents participated in a short nativity performance, with even a real little baby Jesus I really enjoyed beeing part of this community for this event and I even get a present!!! For dessert, we had a huge cake – Ariane, you would have love it! I can tell you that I felt really lucky to know that I have family and friends all around me – even if you’re all far away for now! Thanks to be here guys!!!

On December 21 I went to Cochabamba theatre – for 3€!!! I saw people queuing so I hoped it could be nice  Indeed! Luckily no big speech as it was a dancing school – Jazz Dance Revolution – celebrating its 10 years of H1stOry. 11 groups from around 5-6 years old up to 20 or more. Music was a bit more techno than jazz but choreagraphy were really good and the corps de ballet was excellent!!! The last part was a homage to Mickael Jackson – pretty good!

Leaving in a Bolivian community and working with kids help to recover a bit of my Spanish words… Amanecer Madre de Dios is a school and also a house welcoming children with family problems. Some of them are sleeping there while others are going back home everyday. I spent nearly a week as a volunteer with 4-5 years old kids. What’s great with them: they don’t get upset if you don’t understand right away and are willing to repeat again and again… Incredible how you can already say from their face & behaviour how they might be in future! They already have their proper character! I knew it but it’s fun to see just in front of you  It was a really interesting experience to see how such kind of school are working. I also saw what you should avoid doing with kids! Good to know if I eventually manage to get any one day!

So after a wonderfull night in the bus, I finally reach Cochabamba and was picked up by Ainhoa, one of the Spanish volonteer, who bring me to SOLIDARIDAD – http://www.solidaridadbolivia.org – where Sister Adelina was kindly waiting for me. SOLIDARIDAD is a group of Catholics promoted and coordinated by the Daughters of Cariad of San Vicente de Paul. Its purpose is to welcome and care for the urgent needs of the people without resources and in situation of social necessity and exclusion, fomenting the coordination of the different social services connected with the church and public, and impelling the creation, in each one of the Parishes, of equipment of Social Pastoral, with the last aim to bring back to consciousness to the Christian community of Cochabamba, being stimulated its commitment with the exclusion realities. Big programme! Hope you get it all!

As it is the end of the year, they don’t have that much project going on at the moment, plus I’m not staying long enough for a real project. However, they need hands for preparing presents for penniless people or the one at the hospital. So I gave a little hand with the 2 other Spanish volonteers: Ainhoa & Alvaro, filling up bags with food such as : rice, pasta, sugar, oil, sardine, biscuits, sweets, popcorn – really famous here! – or even soap, toothbrush, comb…

Sister Adelina also found me a small voluntary job at the school Madre de dios in a class with kids from 4 to 5 years old. First 2 days were quite hard as it was really difficult for me to get a word! – I totaly overestimate my capacity to get my Spanish back!!! - I’m eventually starting to get use to it and working with kids is great, even though I wouldn’t like to do it all year round!

I feel so tired… Just arrived in Cochabamba after a 7 hours travel in a bus where I could not sleep… I had a snoring neighbour – not that I’m not use to it! – and I was freezing all night! They tell you that there is toilet: NO, that they make sure temperature is confortable… In your dreams… Only good thing was the view. I was in front and could watch the night filled with stars, seeing 2 shooting stars… All night make you think… Trying to accept things the way they are… Hard job!

Realising this dream is wonderful… Such a fun adventure and I´m really glad to do it! However it doesn´t mean you escape things… You don´t forget your past, people you love, you miss… Your feelings are still here and even thousand kilometres away things still hurts! You cannot ask someone to wait for you as you go away for such a long time. Life is going on… And as someone said to me once: what has happenned has happenned - things need to move on… This is just hard to take even if expected… It will be fine! As someone else said to me: you should not be afraid to loose or leave things behind you - this is how life is, I guess this is the secret… Just need to accept the way it is, to let go… Life cannot be always that much fun! This would be too easy

For my last day in La Paz on my own, I decided to go and see one of the main view point on the city: Mirador Killi Killi. I walked up and down several stairs, as people around, before reaching. The walk was already something, the view was impressive!

In the afternoon, the hostel offered a trip to the Cholitas catchascanistas… I joined, thinking it was the famous Cholitas football – I guess I wasn’t awake properly when I read the offer!!! – It was in El Alto area, again an impressive view on the city and the valley, at 4 000m! After 2 fights it was enough for me. I went out for a short walk around and decided to go back in the center as I had a strong headache! 4 000m might not help…

Perrine & Sylvain left the next day and I decided to visit the Valle de la Luna. After a bbq party in the hostel I met a friendly Australian guy - Nicholas – with whom I spent the day before he left for Cusco and Colombia. No wonder why the Valle de la Luna have is name… You really feel on the Moon… Only surrounded by mountains makes it a bit unrealistic for the moon! It was really hot and we could see some nice cactus there! After catching a bus back to the city – much easier than on the way there, where we had to find a minibus in the middle of the street, quite funny! – we went at the Mercado for lunch and tasted divers types of food: soup, fish, fruits salad – excellent! Except maybe the vitamins juice we took… In the evening we had a really nice dinner in a supposed bolivian-french restaurant – La Comedie - which was a bit more french than bolivian… and it was really good!

La Paz… Incredible city!!! Highest administrative capital of the world – or use to be as on the Constitution, Sucre is the one, which a Bolivian confirmed on the Minibus to La Paz - built between 3200 and 4000 metres in a huge canyon. Really impressive to see all this urbanisation surrounded by snowcap mountains… This is the only city on earth where you have to go up in order to find the slum! 2 350 000 people including El Alto – the slum area which dominate the city. As all big city, it’s really noisy and quite dirty as well but it’s still interesting to see how people are living in such a high city! Still have tiny streets where bus drives! Really nice markets where you can eat for nothing, fresh fruits juice on nearly every corner… Little shops on the street where you can find anything & everything from toilet paper to shampoo, underwear to pyjamas, batteries to lock… Thousand of people walking day and night in the city… Impressive!

I arrived there with Perrine & Sylvain under heavy rain! First thing we did was to catch a taxi as soon as possible to reach one of the hostel we found on our guide book and ended up in The Adventure Brew Hostel – www.theadventurebrewhostel.com - including a microbrewery and a lovely terrace surrounding one part of the city.

In the afternoon, we went to visit the Coca Museum – www.cocamuseum.com – where we spent more than 2 hours, learning about the benefits of this little leaf (I’m sure we learned more than on Wikipedia… Perrine will understand!). In the evening, we went to a traditional Peña where we could see traditional dances and ear traditional music while having diner – not the best of the trip! On the next day, we walked around the city and especialy Mercado de las Brujas, where we met Julie & Thibault (with whom we had this nice picnic in Copacabana) for lunch. 

As we couldn’t make it to La Isla del Sol on Sunday, Perrine & Sylvain decided to move on to the next day in order to hike a bit. When I saw the glacier picture, I was really excited to go there too! Plus hiking on my own wasn’t really easy, so I followed them in this small town surrounded by green mountains – especialy the snowcapped peak of Illampu (6 362m) & Ancohuma (6427m) and at the confluence of the Rios San Cristobal and Challa Suya.

Our first day was a bit short as after crossing by boat the Titicaca Lake – we had to go out of our bus which took another boat to cross the lake, quite a fun experience! – we missed our stop as the driver didn’t say anything to us & we ended up in La Paz… We had to catch a minibus, doing half of the way back,  on a really busy road to go to Sorata… A bit dangerous I would say! But we managed to arrive all in one peace – the road at the end was really bad and driver not really safe one!

We found a lovely hotel at the end of endless  steps. After a good sleep on, we had a big brekfast in the small city center & headed to the Gruta San Pedro under the rain… On our way, we met a group of 5 people: 2 Belgium, 1 French, 1 German & 1 Spanish – with whom we visited the cave. Lots of fun by walking in this warm environement as well as having a small boat trip inside!

On the way back they decided to walk on the Riverside… They ended up sleeping there as it was dark & they could’nt find their way back !

Next day we hiked up to the Laguna Chillata at 4200m – 1500m uneven – a bit too much for me… Luckily it wasn’t raining and Perrine & Sylvain waited for me quite often! I have to say that I was missing my sticks & my back up Gregoire… Anyway I finally managed to get to the cloudy lake!… We quickly had our lunch as it was pretty cold up there and went back down. On the way, as the weather was pretty good, we let go our guide Justinio & had a small nap with a wonderful view on the valley! I finished the way down with some rain…