First off, I had my first official international visitor…my sister!!! It was good having her here. Good times were had. It probably wasn’t the best time for her to visit because there was a LOT of political and social turmoil going on. A major reason for that was Bolivia’s big old referendum took place on the 10th. People were preparing for things to turn very ugly on that weekend. I was told to stock up on a couple days worth of food, water, and cash. I was also told not to leave my apartment on the 10th. But luckily there weren’t any major problems; it was actually the quietest day I have experienced in Cocha. No cars were allowed on the roads, people were prohibited from carrying guns, even the sale of liquor was limited. The normal parade of non stop honking/lawn motor sounding car engines was replaced by silence. It was actually kind of nice. Still the same, the two weeks leading up to the 10th were jammed packed with roadblocks, protests, heightened police presence, and general demonstrations, which meant we had to alter our traveling plans quite a bit. But we were still able to do some travelling.
We managed to make it to Copacabana for Independence Day which is said to be one of the places to be in Bolivia for the big day. The normally quiet community was absolutely packed with people. There was non-stop music and partying. We stayed two nights there then hit up the Isla de Sol, the place where the Inca dynasty was apparently born. With no cars, surrounded by the massive Lago Titicaca, and snow capped mountains in the distance, this place was very chill. Here’s us on the Island.
There, we hiked some 7 hours across the island, which isn’t the easiest thing to do at an altitude of some 4000+ meters. When first got to the island, we had to climb a massive hill with all our bags. While we were struggling to make it up, this little old frail man that lives on the island was casually walking up the hill, encouraging us telling us to keep on climbing.Considering all that was going on, we only ran into a couple problems traveling. In retrospect things could have been very bad. Nevertheless, traveling back was a bit of an adventure. First off, we had a very, very rough, two hour (normally it should take one hour) boat ride back from the Isla because of bad weather. Our bus ride to El Alto also took a bit longer than expected. Once in El Alto, the roads leading to the airport were in total gridlock. We ran weaving through gridlock traffic amazing race style trying to get to the airport on time for our flight to Cocha. (Again, at some 4500+ meters, not all that easy to do.) We made to the airport on time only to find out our flight was delayed then cancelled because of snow. We were told that we would have a flight the next day so we ended up crashing at the airport in a lounge. The employees decided to lock the lounge door for our safety but kind of forgot about us. The next morning, after about an hour of trying to get out of the locked lounge, we found out that we were no longer entitled to our flight. This was somewhat problematic because there were no more flights or buses to Cocha after 2:00pm because of the referendum. So if we were not on that flight, we would be stuck in El Alto for a couple days until after the referendum. After talking to a bunch of people and a bit of waiting, we finally managed to get last minute tickets on the flight and, again in amazing race style, ran through the airport, caught the plane and finally got home to Cocha.
We also did a lot of sightseeing and chillin in Cocha. Lots more exciting stuff happened, this would be the abridged version. I must say, it was really good having her. I’ve posted lots more pics on facebook.
And now I would like to introduce you all to Carlos and Shaniqua, my new fish! There are not the most photogenic of fish but here they are.
In the picture they look massive but in reality they are less than an inch big. I normally don’t really like fish but these two are the chillist fish I’ve every seen. The only thing is that they are absolutely petrified of me...oh and lately Shaniqua has been attacking Carlos. I fear for his life.In other exciting new, my whistling skills have improved significantly! Being able to whistle in Cocha, and all of Latin America for that matter, is a critical skill. Just to clarify, I am not talking about the plucking style whistle. I am talking about the other super loud style of whistling that can stop a bus a block away. Here, it is used for everything. A couple friends here have been coaching me, teaching me the ways. The other day I stopped my first bus on the other side of the street at rush hour with my whistle. A humble but significant accomplishment for me.
As many of my fellow IDSers have noted in their blogs, month 3 is typically one of the toughest months on placement. But half way through the month, I must say things are going alright. My health good, work is good, visitors are good, weather is good, things are good. These next couple months are going to be busy ones but hopefully good ones. I am pretty excited about what is in the works. I’ll be starting to conduct my research very soon which means lots of traveling and lots of rap, which is cool with me. By October, I will hopefully be launching a new program for youth (a LIT program) which I am really pumped about. Anyways, hope everyone is doing well!
