viajes en bolivia

i’m back! after five days, four nights, and countless hours (actually not countless, the estimate is around 25) spent on various forms of locomotion traveling through the jesuit mission circuit which is north, north east of santa cruz, i’ve finally made it back to santa cruz, the place that now feels like home here in bolivia. and man was it an adventure! three of the girls that are volunteering here in santa cruz and i took a bit of time off from volunteering to travel through this circuit of little towns that were there are beautifully restored jesuit churches from the 18th century and get the opportunity to see another side of bolivia outside of santa cruz. i actually almost chose not to go on the trip, but i’m so glad I did because we had a blast, made a ton of memories, and saw some really beautiful (and some not so beautiful) parts of bolivia.

it would takes pages upon pages to type out all of the stories that came out of our little trip, so instead of spending so much time writing out all the probably boring details, i’ll just give you what would be the chapter titles and a quick description if i were to write a book about the trip:

1. journey east on the death train- our journey from santa cruz to san jose de chicuitos on an eight hour train they call “the death train” for some unknown reason that only cost $3
   a really cool picture i took while on the train (i think the train ride may have been one of my favorite parts!)


2. samuel, his classy taxi, and the town of san josé- in san josé we stayed an orphanage called padre alfredo (katie works at the santa cruz branch of the orphanage) for free and then went on a tour of the city with our taxi driver/guide samuel (see picture of him and his car)
   the girls with samuel's sweet car. he jokingly told us that it was the latest model in san josé, but hey, it got the job done!
   


3. three flat tires and a three kilometer hike later…- turns out we missed the only bus out of san josé for the weekend so we had to negotiate a cut rate taxi ride to the next town on the circuit, san Rafael, with our trust taxi driver Samuel. the 130 km bumpy, incredibly dusty dirt road took us about 5 hours to travel, including three flat tires, and finally having to walk the last 3 km into town because we had run out of spares and the car couldn’t drive with all four of us on a flat tire. this was definitely one of the most memorable of our experiences on the trip.
   
4. the screams in hell must sound like roosters- we arrived (walking) to san rafael pretty late, got dinner, and then found a hostel. the hostel was really basic, but it wasn’t too bad… until the roosters started crowing 15 ft outside our door at 2:30 in the morning and didn’t stop until we left to catch our bus at 6:00 in the morning. none of us slept well at all and i now cringe at the sound of a rooster call.
   
5. santa ana: the underrated jewel of the jesuit missions- the next stop was santa ana, a very rustic village with a cool little lake. it felt genuinely bolivian and was one of our favorite stops, but we were only there for the afternoon.
   
6. luxury living in san ignacio… NOT!- next came san ignacio, the headquarters of the restoration project and the biggest town in the circuit were we stayed in a very cheap hostel. but we definitely got what we paid for. the pictures speak for themselves… but the town was really nice.
   super classy place...
   
the church in san ignacio

7. i’m now a bolivian cowgirl- while we were in san Ignacio we went horseback riding around the outside of town and around a big lake which was really fun, and super cheap. a little over an hour for less than $3!
   
8. the first shower in four days!- the church in concepción was one of my favorite b/c it had really beautiful details, but sadly my camera decided to freak out just in time for me to not be able to take pics of it (luckily Aubrey got some great ones, but still really frustrating, b/c it’s still not working). we weren’t in concepción for too long, but highlights of our stay include the nicest hostel we stayed in (where we finally got to shower) and a couple great meals
   
9. a long bus ride home- and then we headed home and all of us were squirming to get off the bus by the time we finally got back
   

so there’s a few snippets of the trip! i can’t wait to tell you some of the full stories when I talk to you in person or when i get home in just over 3 weeks. oh how quickly the time has gone. i only have a week and a half left in bolivia. and in the mean time, the volunteer house has filled to the brim. i think we have 8 people in the house now and i’ve heard 3 are coming this week. a couple are leaving soon too, but still i’m not sure where everyone will go. i hardly know what to do with so many people around, but i think having such a full house will make for a fun last bit of time here. please keep praying for my relationships with my fellow volunteers and for the work that’s going on in the orphanage.

well i love you all and miss you so much. please stay in touch. i’d love to hear how life’s going at home!

finally pictures!

i'm gonna keep the words short on this edition of "rachel's blog" but give you some long awaited pictures of the beautiful kids i've been working with. every day they steal my heart a little bit more.

this is angel. i think he's 2 and he has down syndrome and he's adorable! i play with him alot and feed him every day at lunch. he can be really grumpy at times, but i'm telling you, there's nothing cuter than his smile and laugh when he gets excited or tickled.

this is cristian, he also has downs, but he's 7 i think. he's so loving and sweet. lots of fun.


this is javier. he's actually the one who bit me a couple weeks ago. the woman in the picture is one of the mámas at the orphanage.

in other news, i'm going to do a bit of traveling this weekend. me and three of the girls i'm living with are going to do the jesuit mission circuit which consists of a string of towns that have what are supposed to be beautifully restored jesuit missions. it's going to be my only chance to see bolivia outside of santa cruz, so i'm really excited to see another side of bolivia. so please pray for safe travels and my relationships with the girls i'm traveling with.

well, i've been on the internet for too long now and i'm worn out, but i'll blog again when i get back. i hope you all are enjoying your summer. i really do miss you all, and i'll be seeing you in not too long!

packed like sardines

i would like to dedicate the beginning of this blog update to the ridiculousness that is the transportation system here in santa cruz, bolivia. and may i just say, that i’d hate to see what the rest of bolivia is like, with their notoriously terrible roads, after seeing how bad santa cruz’s are, santa cruz being the posh, rich city in bolivia.

so first of all, there’s the fact that i’ve mentioned before that the concept of a stop sign only barely exists here. i think i’ve seen three the whole time i’ve been in bolivia, and those were all in places you can do i u-turn on the highway… so one may ask, how does one know who has the right of way in a four way intersection? good question, one that Ii myself asked for quite some time until one of my housemates provided me with the answer she had read in lonely planet. the way it works is that as a car nears an intersection, they simply honk their horn, and the first person to honk their horn has the right of way. simple enough right… well, this crazy system often causes mass amounts of confusion and near crashes along with an amazing amount of sound pollution from the never ending source of honks coming from everywhere in the city. even now, typing up this blog from the comfort of our house, with all the doors and windows closed, i can hear honks coming from every which way.

next, there’s the bus (or as they call them, micro) system. mind you, I spent a fair amount of each day on these micros. but anyway, the system is quite similar to that in chile, with the small difference that the busses are smaller and the rates are cheaper. the crazy thing about them is how many people the drivers like to squeeze into these busses that have no more that 15 actual seats. just this evening for example, ana and I were coming back from getting coffee around 6:00 and we ended up being the last people to comfortably fit onto the already full #65 micro that would take us back to our house. well, comfortably fitting isn’t how the micros function, so after we get on, a bunch more people end up cramming on as the driver urges people to keep moving backwards into some imaginary free space in the back where you can cram endless amounts of people, until the micro has given an all new meaning to the saying “packed like sardines”. we counted around 40 people crammed onto this little bus on the trip home. in situations like that, the notion of personal space completely disappears as the bus turns into a huge mass of bodies, all constantly bumping into each other in their attempts to keep standing over the bumps and turn.

and the insanity goes on and on. I could write pages and pages about the road conditions and crazy ways of driving, but I won’t bore you any more for one day.

in other news from down south, two new volunteers have arrived in the volunteer house. their names are shawn and megan and they both are from the northeast and go to Princeton. megan is actually only here for two days today before she heads up north to work with an orchestra in a little town, but shawn will be here the rest of the time I’m here. I haven’t really gotten a chance to talk to him yet, as he got in really late last night, but it’s nice to have new people in the house.
as for the orphanage, things are going great. this week I’ve started working on making flashcard/picture communication systems for some of the nonverbal children. I got together with one of the tías to come up with a list of needed pictogramas and now I’ve been working in any free time I have on the internet (which is difficult to come by b/c I have to go to a café with wifi to get wireless) to find pictures and format the cards. searching for pictures has proved to be really frustrating and tiring, but it’d be so great to make some really nice cards for them and have something to leave behind when I go.

so that’s life as of now. today’s friday so that means the weekend’s ahead. I think we may take a short bus ride south (or actually maybe it’s east… idk…) on sunday to a town called catoca where there’s supposed to be a lot of good authentic bolivian food and a good artesenía (pretty much an open air souvenir shop), so that should be really fun. I haven’t gotten to see any other town but santa cruz, so it’ll be great to get another taste of bolivia.

well, keep the updates coming and I’ll do the same. I love you and miss you all lots!