sorry it took me a while to write something, but i never got around to it…. goodness, life never stops…
life is crazy here (was it any less crazy in seattle?). just always things to be done, busy, busy… rarely appears the the hour in which i have to do absolutely nothing and i can contemplate the tranquilty of things. after the trip to yanayo i hung out with several of my aunts in cochabamba, staying in their respective houses. they have absolutely gorgeous houses and properties…. legacy of their wealthy german ancestory. one place was fanstasitic, with an entire lake and a forest and a soccer field and swimming pool in the place. i had my own little house to stay in. it felt like a hotel or something. the property connected with other yards and then there were intermittant houses, hidden behind a layer of tropical vegetation… the houses belonged to the other family members. and the entire property was guarded by nine german shepards. imagine this place… and every morning i would do yoga with my aunt, who was actually the yoga teacher. she would give classes every day at 9am to a group of older ladies. i was the only one under 60, haha… but it was fun nonetheless
after being in cochabamba for 4 days, i returned to la paz, and since then i have been reading books, reading bolivian forestry stuff, doing more reading, attending formal social events at USAID (i came out in the newspaper with the director of USAID who is leaving this year to go to afghanistan), searching for jobs and volunteer work in the US and bolivia, trying to get my bolivian citizenship, visiting family and more family, visiting more cousins and distant relatives, going out with family friends, running into family friends, taking driving lessons (i figure that if i can learn to drive a stick shift in bolivia, i can drive anywhere in this world), trying to get my yellow fever vaccination (which expires this year), climbing up part way the mountain of huayna potosi, traveling to the salar de uyuni (pics at end of post), going on a bike right on “the death road”, and preparing myself to do 2 months volunteer work in the madidi national park (the jungle part of bolivia). i will only have radio communication from there, and i must not wear any bright clothes (red, or whatever) in case i look appetizing to the jaguars… ehrm.
seriously, i have more family here than i ever dreamed of. and with a huge family comes tricky relationships and scandolus things… so i learned that some handsome uncle of mine was married to an ex miss bolivia for about 15 years, but apparently ex miss bolivia is the bitch from hell who had been cheating on him with another guy for 5 years. and this other guy was the husband of a very rich woman who owns the best jewerly shops in bolivia and even has some stuff in miami. in any case, my uncle has nice house in la paz, and in order to get some income (because his ex pretty much took all of his money), decided to rent it out to the french embassy. well, ex miss bolivia called the house everyday, being absolutely rude and abnoxious, so that the french folks who were living there finally had to leave because of her harassment. so, to help out my uncle a little bit, my my and i helped him move back into his house, transporting funiture and what not from one place to another.
and so there are more stories like this one, where some aunt is married to the former mexican president, and some scandolus things happened. and my grandfather was putting up a scadal in cochabamba. i didn´t go visit him because of family issues. you know… now i am thinking twice about maybe, perhaps, wanting a big family. i think i´ll just forget about having kids.
life is good, life is crazy. it is definately an adventure……
the bug bites are pretty much gone now. just some scars, maybe. dunno. hopefully i won´t have any real marks cuz they look… not so pretty. hummm.
the mountain bike trip to coroico on the road of death was fun, an adventure, though actually quite scary at times. i was feeling nervous after there was a motorcycle accident. i did not actually see the accident because it was sooooo foggy. but what happened was that there was a german woman who was driving her motorbike downhilll as a truck passed her. the truck caused her to wobble on the bike, and she lost control, falling off the side of the road to a ditch (on the upslope of the road, not toward the super cliff). there was a cement drainage way that she must have falling awkardly into, breaking her back and neck. she could not move her feet, though she could move hands. so one of our group´s support vehicle had to drive her back to la paz so that she could get professional medical attention. and then later on the 5 hour bike trip, during which it was raining about 75 percent of the time, one of out group members was going to fast, slipped around a wet corner on the dirt part, and hit the ground or maybe the rock on the upslope side of the road in such a way that he broke his collar bone. he was the guy right in front of me. again, i did not actually see him fall, because it was sooooo foggy, but when i came up to him, he was on his side, just grunting sounds for about a minute. i was imaging the worst after the german woman´s motorcycle accident. i guess everyone else was too, because we huddled around him tell him not to move, in case it was a spinal injury. breath deeply, it will be alright. we waited for the guide to come up hill again (another guide called the main guide by radio communication). about 5 tense minutes went by. or maybe 10 minutes. i don´t know. the fallen fellow began to get over the shock enough to tell us that it was his shoulder that was hurting him bad. he ended up rolling himself over to get the pressure off of that shoulder. i thought it was a dislocated shoulder. you could see a definate swelling in his left shoulder. he was complaining that there was not enough circulation going through his arm, that it was getting cold. i was thinking that the dislocation might be pinching off his veins or something. finally the main guide came, and he told the small group of us around him to continue down the hill, and leave the situation up to him. 20 minutes later, the guide came down the road, with the injured fellow in the bus behind him, cursing the good lot everytime the bus hit a bump. it was diagnosed as a broken collar bone. i am now thinking about taking some serious first aid class. something really useful, because the course that i took to go to alaska doesn´t really show you much…. CPR and that is about it. i felt a bit useless, just looking at the guy, wondering what the hell to do, waiting for the real help to come. besides, what if somehting else happens like this… it probably will knowing that i do crazy adventure things. maybe i can take a class here? probably is cheaper, though i don´t know the quality of things. seriously… for 100 USD i can learn how to drive the manual transimission car. in the US it probably cost sooo much more. though i don´t honestly know how much.
looks like that i will not be able to get my bolivian nationality anytime soon… i have to go back to the US, get an official copy of my birth certificate in both english and spanish, have it legalized and something else, come back down to bolivia, and go through a who other process down here. i will leave it for another time….
huayna potosi
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2245563&l=fede6&id=10720400
potosi and salar de uyuni part 1
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2247992&l=6ed0c&id=10720400
potosi and salar de uyuni part 2
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2247993&l=fdec5&id=10720400
biking “el camino de la muerte” - the death road
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2251180&l=b700c&id=10720400
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