Outside My Southern Comfort Zone: Sorry about having so many photos

A view from the Valle de Las Animas

So I guess I’ll start by catching you up on my health. So the stomach thing is completely gone and over with. Thank God! I have managed to gain back my weight. Maybe because I was extremely hungry for over a week since I had barely eaten. My sunburn has finally finished peeling and I have a nice bronze tint. This week started and I began to feel a tickle in my throat. The next day I felt it a little more. Next thing you know I develop a cough and a very deep voice. It’s like a never ending story here. And I’m not the only one. It has been like this for everyone more or less. But I am on the upswing now. I have been coughing up some flim and my voice is somewhat going back to normal. I just hope that I have a good few weeks of good health before I fall ill with something again… Speaking of health, we had to shut down Casa de Paso this week (the building where I work). It started last week when 2 of the kids in the kindergarten had confirmed cases of Hepatitis A. Hepatitis A has been a big problem lately in Bolivia especially in schools and prisons. Soon after the 2 cases were confirmed in Casa de Paso, it turned into 6, then 10, and by this Monday it was 12. So we shut down Casa de Paso to the public to clean the whole building. We wiped down everything. In our office we even waxed the floors while we had the opportunity while everything was moved out of the way. In the states many people receive vaccinations for viruses such as this but here in Bolivia many of the people can’t afford healthcare and not many preventative measures are taken. This is one of the things that I appreciate about Foundation Arco Iris and Hope Worldwide as they try to provide up to date and free or very cheap healthcare to the poor here in La Paz.

Me waxing the floor in the office

On Friday this week Justus and I had a bit of a revelation about healthcare here in La Paz. As we were walking up the hill to work, a lady fell down in the road and began having a seizure in front of us. Once the seizing stopped I checked to make sure she was breathing and not choking on anything. Then we carried her up the hill to Casa de Paso and waited for the doctor to get there. She was about 10 minutes away. So Justus and I had to stay with her to keep an eye on her. I noticed that she was foaming a bit from her mouth so we rolled her on her side to prevent any choking. That’s when we thought about how difficult it is to get to a hospital here in the city. Yea there are ambulances but it is quicker to get to the hospital in a Taxi. Even then it might take 30 minutes or more in rush hour traffic. Finally the doctor showed up and started to treat the lady. When the lady started to come to she was very confused and hit the doctor in the nose. I then had to restrain the lady so that she wouldn’t hit anyone else. After we gave the lady some more oxygen she finally began to calm down. After about 20 minutes she started to realize where she was and began apologizing for all that happened (punching the doctor in the nose). I sit here now and think what would have happened if no one was around when she had her seizure. I am just grateful that we could be there and that she is ok. She and her sister who came to pick her up were extremely grateful as well.

Little Cholita standing on the side of the road.

Hmm... Now what have I done since my last blog? Well one day Justus and I went to Huajchilla. We had to go visit a family that lived there. And there was a good ways out of the city but not as far as Huayauasi. It also is a small town out in the valleys below La Paz. As we were waiting we met some of the nicest people. That’s one of my favorite things about Bolivia. I always meet some of the nicest people who are willing to take the time to talk to you and answer your questions. She told us all about Huajchilla and many places around. Finally the lady that we were visiting showed up and we went to her house. It is very sad to see how many of these people live. After visiting we headed back to the city to return to the office. This past weekend (a week from the day I post this), we went to the house of one of the coordinators of Casa de Paso for a cookout. It was a great time! Her son is in cooking school so he manned the grill and I layed back in the hammock enjoying the nice cool breeze. Her husband and Mathias were playing the churango and the guitar. I tended to doze off every once in a while until the food was ready. And man was it good. The food was delicious. If there ever is another cookout at her house I have no doubt in my mind that I will return.

Nice little BBQ shack

I'm Really liking all these Barbecues

My serenading music

Today Bekka and I went to Valle de las Animas (Valley of the Spirits). We had tried to find it once before but today was looking more promising. We took a minibus to Cota Cota and the took a micro further out of the city. We met three young Bolivian college students who had to walk in the same direction as us. They helped us with directions and we talked about all kinds of things. I am amazed at how much my Spanish continues to develop as time goes by. Yea I have trouble when I don’t know certain words but I am able to have a conversation that can last over an hour now. It is very encouraging. So they had to turn off on another road and Bekka and I kept on trudging along down the dirt road. We then noticed that we had missed the entrance of the valley and decided go in through the exit. Now this valley is not like parks back at home that have marked hiking trails or ropes and rails. This is rugged, untamed hiking. We began walking up a river bed. Notice I said UP! The whole hike was basically walking up a river bed of some mountains. The further we walked the thinner the air got. It was slightly harder to breathe and the calves of my legs were burning like crazy. I could definitely tell that I was just getting over a cold. The sights were breath taking (if it wasn’t already hard enough to breathe). There were spires of rocks jutting up into the sky everywhere. And the higher we got, the valley began to open up and green hills were everywhere. When we turned back to see where we had climbed, we could see far off into the distance as mountains poked up above other mountain ridges and so on far as you could see. It was like nothing I had ever seen before. We continued walking up trying to find the way out of the valley when I just decided that we should climb a mountain.

Cool mountains behind me

Look At This!

Me stuck in a crack

Long ways down!

At the top of the mountain, after I finally caught my breath, I began to recognize where we were though I had only seen it from a distance. We decided to go higher up another mountain but first we had to avoid some cows that seemed to be very interested in us. I was the first to the top and I almost fell back in amazement. On the other side of this mountain was one of the most amazing views of the city that I have ever seen. We were higher than El Alto because I could see well off into the Altiplano on the other side of El Alto. We could see far off through the valleys south of the city and many mountains off in the distance. The best part of all was that down the steep cliff at our feet was a Valley of spired columns of rock that seemed to look like a lunar landscape. WOW! I think that this mountain top is my new favorite place in Bolivia though it is not easy task to get to. When we turned around to look back where we had come from we were stunned with an amazing view of Illimani. íQue Bonita! We finally decided we should start to head down back to the city and then home. It was starting to get late (we had been out there for 3 or 4 hours). Our route of choice was through the valley of the spired columns of rocks. Again it was not easy to get down to that point. We had to scale down a steep set of hills until we got down to the river bed. At least this time we were walking down. While walking through the valley we were dwarfed by sky scraping towers of rock. The walls seemed to hundreds of feet high. It was a lot bigger than it looked from above. The valley took about an hour to walk through with the occasional pit stop for a picture. Finally we exited the valley and found ourselves in the far edge of the city where we caught a minibus home.

Valley of Spires of rock bellow my feet

Chillin on top of a mountain. You know!

Wall of rock on each side

Nooks and crannies in the sides of the mountains

How beautiful is this?

A few side notes: every so often I have these dreams that I am at home in the States. I am usually sitting on the couch at grandma’s house or chilling with a family member. Then I realize that it is Saturday and I need to hurry up and get a plane ticket to leave on Sunday so I can get back to Bolivia so I won’t be late for work on Monday. But then I wake up and realize that I was never home. It’s a very confusing dream whenever I have it.

Also you may have noticed in some of my photos that my facial hair is getting a bit longer. I am doing No Shave November. I am half way there and I’m very interested to see how it will look at the end of the month. I haven’t shaved anything since Halloween. I will put up a photo at the end of the month so everyone can see. So make sure to check back.

If anyone has any questions about Bolivia or life here, or wants to leave a comment feel free to do so in the comment section.