Bus Cama and Bolivian Futbol

We finally rode a bus cama. In case you don't know what a bus cama is, its a bus whose seats fold down into a bed for those really long trips (which is unavoidable in South America, seeing how HUGE the countries are down here). However, much to our disappointment the bus camas in Bolivia are NOTHING like the ones in Perú, as in they aren't really bus camas just seats with a little bit extra leg room. And for much more money. Our whole experience in the Cochabamba bus station was a disaster. No one seemed to know which bus we were supposed to get on or where our bus even was. I guess we'll just have to wait till we get back to Perú to try out the real thing.

Anyway, we arrived in Sucre in the early morning hours, groggy and disoriented as usual. At least this time we had a reservation and knew exactly what to tell the taxi driver. After a quick rest we headed to Tarabuco a pueblito about 2 hrs from Sucre that has a huge market on Sundays filled with artisans goods. We ended up spending all our money within the first 15 minutes of arrival. But like we agreed its kinda hard to come away with a bad buy when it comes to Bolivian weavings. They are all so colorful, bright and just amazing pieces of art that you can easily close your eyes point to one at random and come away happy.

There was another passenger in the taxi ride to Tarabuco who had some awful views of the Indigenous population and the whole Constituent Assembly going on in Sucre this week. She told us that all the poor people are animals, with no reason and no brains. We felt tempted to remind her that in fact all humans are a form of animals and that maybe the the poor people who make up more than half of Bolivia's population where tired of having their rights walked all over and wanted a better standard of living and therefor voted Morals into office. But we just let it go, its not our country after all and who are we to pick a fight.

Today in general has been a hard day. Everywhere we looked their was poverty staring us right in the face, mostly in the form of the very old or very young. It's always staring us in the face, but there are days where one is able to push it to the periphery of one's mind and see it as a part of life. Then there are other days (more frequent) where it just wrenches your heart to see kids as young as five wondering around pestering to shine your shoes (even if you're wearing sneakers) or for a few pesitos for food with blood shot eyes from sniffing too much glue. We ended up giving half our dinner away to several street kids and an old man selling weavings. What must these people think of us? We must seem so rich to them, coming all the way to Bolivia from the USA, the land of plenty. And in comparison we are.

On a brighter note, we managed to see the local futbol team. Always an adventure. Futbol has a totally different meaning then any sport played in the USA. I mean fans or bloody fanatic, to the extreme! There were people who where listening to another futbol game going on in La Paz while watching the live one. And the obscenities yelled at the opposing team would make any decent person turn red. They also resort to throwing fruit, setting off fire works, and bringing live bands into the stadium. The game we saw was tied much to the aggravation of both fans. Sam and I escaped before it turned too ugly.

Tomorrow we're off to see dinosaur tracks! Crazy I know!

Valley of Eternal Smog

So lets see, where to begin.

Sam and I are currently in lovely smog filled Cochabamba. Its the third largest city in Bolivia and apparently the road from La Paz to Cochabamba is the "best road" in the country. Cochabamba has a climate very similar to the south west of the USA. Very dry (well at least in the winter and dry season, which is right now). Like I mentioned there is a constant thick layer of smog that hovers over the city that chokes the breath out of you. Which is a constant reminder of the need for an environmental NGO such as the one we are volunteering with.

We're staying in the neighborhood of Cala Cala, a relatively affluent neighborhood of well to do Bolivianos and ex-pats. This does not mean that you don't see poverty, in fact its visible directly from our living room window which over looks a nasty polluted river which people wash their cars and bath in. And on any given evening you can see kids huddled together sniffing glue, a very popular trend everywhere we've been.

We live on the top floor of a three story apartment style building. The owners live on the bottom level. Adam, Maria Eugenia (the founders of Environment Bolivia) and their two lovely boys live on the second floor. We occupy the third floor along with EBs office. Its a pretty swanky set up. We have our private bathroom (but no hot water) not to worry, there is a second bathroom that occusionally has hot water, if your lucky. Our room has an excellent view of the world's tallest Jesús and for the first time in 8 months I've completely unpacked my backpack and hung my cloths up. The best bit, there is a lovely woman, Olivia, who comes through every day and cleans up, washes any dishes that Sam or I didn't get to before her arrival, makes our beds even if we've made them already and cleans the apartment.

So our first month volunteering with EB is winding to a close and to celebrate we are taking this coming week off and heading 12 hrs south to Sucre. The "white city" (it seems that every country has a "white city" its quite a popular trend). Unfortunately our vacation falls in the same week of the Constituant Assembly meetings so all the hotels are completely booked and the town is going to be overflowing with foreign presidents and official looking people. Which means it will probably be overrunning with soldiers and police in riot gear. We've managed to book a room in a hospedaje until Wed but will have to find a new place or move on to Potosí for Sam's b-day.

We're both really looking forward to seeing a little more of Bolivia besides La Paz and Cochabamba. Its a weird feeling not becoming familiar with a country immediately, but also a nice change to be able to travel super light. I'm personally looking forward to the wonderful weavings that Sucre and the surrounding pueblitos are famous for.