What a week...

Ok...so I am already running behind in updating this thing. Not a good start. In my defence my access to internet has been very limited and also I've starting getting pretty sick. I am realizing now that it is going to be very difficult to keep up with emails and stay in touch but Ill be doing my best.

So my first week in Bolivia has come and lots has happened. Here is a brief breakdown of this past week.

Kickin it in La Paz/El Alto

I spent most of tuesday in the CUSO office in La Paz where I had a mini-orientation. I then went out and enjoyed my final night in La Paz.

Me in La Paz.

On Wednesday morning I got a sweet tour of La Paz and El Alto by Don Guillermo, taxi driver extraordinaire. He has been driving the very unforgiving roads of La Paz with great skill for the past 30 years. He has become the official taxi driver for the CUSO office. For a couple hours I got the honour to tour around checking out the spots. Here is a picture of me and Don Guillermo.

Me in El Alto. Behind me and down, very very down, is La Paz.

In the afternoon I flew out to Cochabamba. I was meet by the Cooper family, my hosts and fellow CUSO cooperants, who have been extremely helpful here.

Coca and Chica in the Chapare

Thursday was a holiday and most people took friday off so it was a nice long weekend. The Coopers, some more fellow CUSOers, their friends, and myself bussed off to the Chapare region and stayed there until Sunday. The Chapare, in the amazon, is one of Bolivia's major coca growing regions. Good times were had white water rafting, hiking in the jungle, and just relaxing.

As a whole, this past week has been sweet. Thinking back it has been amazing seeing the diversity that is Bolivia. Culturally, economically, political, as seen on graffitied walls, and most evidently geographically. I went from the cold, dry, gray, high altitude cities of La Paz and El Alto to the warm, green, mid-altitude valley in Cochabamba to the super hot, humid amazon. At the same time, though, the change of one extreme environment to the other in such a short time has been a little physically taxing. Now that my stomach is acting up, physically I am hurting a bit but other than that all is good in Cocha!