And I Sing of Bolivia with Smog-Filled Lungs

It was a short three hours from Copacabana to La Paz and we arrived sometime in the late evening. We met a couple of Holly and Jessie's friends at their hotel in La Paz, but it was a little pricey for our taste. So our cab driver took us to a couple other places, all equally expensive. But eventually we got tired of looking and decided to spend a little extra for a little convenience. I fell asleep with my journal and pen open on my bed at 9pm that night. Traveling will do that to you. We slept late, did some much needed laundry, met Holly and Jessie's other friend, Matias, and grabbed some breakfast.

Then we set out to find a different hostal to stay in for the rest of our tour in La Paz. We settled on one near the Mercado de Hechiceria, a street near our hostal populated by witches who sell a variety of goods from dried plants and herbs to the skeletons of baby llamas. Safe choice, I think. After weaving through hordes of Bolivians crowding the terribly narrow sidewalks, we decided to take a cab to the Mirador for a little space. The small, rusted car "I think I can, I think I can"-ed it's way up the steep, spiraled street to the top of a hill overlooking the city. La Paz is a giant brown blob filling the bottom of a valley surrounded by grass-covered mountains. The temperature swings dramatically from suffocating heat and humidity during midday and cold rain in the evenings. Poverty abounds in this city, as in all of Bolivia, and the indigenous community must be something like 50% of the population. All of this makes for an interesting city, but not one that I care to spend too much time in.

While Matias and I bought bus tickets to Cochabamba, the girls met Ben and Rom (two Israeli friends Holly and Jessie met at Patagonia) at their favorite restaurant in La Paz. Fun fact about Israelis: they travel a LOT and apparently always to La Paz. Hebrew hostals and restaurants abound, always with large groups of ten or more Israelis merrymaking within. Anyway, we spent the rest of the day wandering around the markets looking for souvenirs and gifts. Bolivia is wonderfully affordable so the market experience was a lucrative one. We carried our treasures back to the hostal to share a bottle of wine and a few laughs. Then it was downtown for dinner... after about an hour of wandering up and down the main street searching for any sort of food other than fast food chicken. Finally we found a sufficient restaurant which served dry pasta and bland soup. But of course we still ate our fill and decided to call it another early night.

Sam and Molly got up very early the next morning to ride Death Road, the world's most dangerous road which is now closed to vehicles but is very popular for avid bicyclists. It is a narrow, gravel road with cliffs with up to 600 meter drops--an average of 26 vehicles a year disappeared into the abyss below before it was closed. While they were risking their lives on rented bicycles, the rest of us unknowingly put our own lives in danger over breakfast. We grabbed bread, cheese, coffee, and bananas and headed a nearby plaza to eat. Apparently, pigeons really like bread and aren't too afraid of people either. I tried to keep my cool but when one flew treacherously close to my face, I let out an embarrassing yelp that echoed against the surrounded buildings and spilled scalding coffee on my newly washed pair of jeans. The toothless man plucking his whiskers in the park thought it was quite hilarious.

With a full stomach, stained jeans, and a heavy heart, we accompanied Holly, Sam, and Molly to the airport to say goodbye for the next five months or more. As they headed to Uyuni and then to Chile for their orientations, Jessie, Matias, and I felt like worried parents watching our children walk away with their oversized backpacks, not to be seen again for far too long. We spent the rest of our day in La Paz wandering leisurely through other markets, met Ben and Rom for dinner, and then hopped on a night bus to Cochabamba.

Originally, we had planned to break up our 16 hour trip to Santa Cruz by staying a night in Cochabamba, but when we arrived we discovered that there was a strike going on and if we wanted to get to Santa Cruz we would have to leave immediately to beat the road block. This was just as well since Cochabamba didn't give us the best first impression, anyway. When we got off the bus, there was a crowd of people around the underneath compartment grabbing for their bags. As we got near the front, Matias thankfully noticed an extremely frightening man who looked like Shere Khan grabbing for my backpack and claiming that it was his. Matias jumped in and grabbed it for me before it was stolen, but by that point, we couldn't wait to hop on the bus to Santa Cruz. So by 6:30am we were on our way.

Going from La Paz to Santa Cruz is a little bit of a shock. Because of a recent agricultural boom, the city is more prosperous, has a more diverse population, and a higher standard of living. In some areas of the city it was hard to believe that we were still in Bolivia. Ritzy steakhouses and boutiques selling clothes for American dollars line the main street in a neighborhood of tropical mansions. The central plaza is bustling with Bolivian teenage hipsters making their way to the variety of uppity coffee shops, Cuban restaurants, and sushi joints. Since 2006, a portion of the city's population have been voicing their desire for independence from the rest of Bolivia which has led to an understandably rocky relationship between the two and a continuing attempt by Santa Cruz to further differentiate itself from its home country. All this to say that Santa Cruz is a wonderful city that offers a wealth of cultural and environmental experiences inside and out of the city center, all with a slightly different flavor than the rest of Bolivia.

We spent a lot of time in Santa Cruz frequenting a couple favorite Cuban restaurants and coffee shops, wandering around lost, and planning a trip to a small nearby pueblo (town) that never came to pass. But we also stopped by a steakhouse in the most prominent neighborhood in Santa Cruz to say hello to the owners, the parents of one of Jessie's friends from Trinity. They were extremely kind, generous, and hospitable, comping us a meal that otherwise would have been very impossible to us. After weeks of meals consisting of bread and cheese, a delicious steak with roasted vegetables and rice was nirvana at that point. The day before we left Santa Cruz for Sucre, we hit Biocentro Guembe, a butterfly sanctuary outside the city. Little did we know, it was actually a resort with ten natural swimming pools, hammocks and pavilions, and a restaurant with international cuisine. In addition to the butterfly sanctuary there was an orchid exhibition, an aviary, and a meditation garden, all along a perfect dirt path through the forest. As we laid out by the pool, we wondered how we had found ourselves soaking up the sun at a resort in the middle of Bolivia...

From Santa Cruz to Sucre was 19 hours in a bus. Yes. 19. It may have been the most miserable bus ride of the entire trip. Partially because it was nauseatingly hot and humid and because I had gotten sick in La Paz and was still taking cold medicine like it was candy. Also because every square inch of the bus was occupied. Elderly people and families with small children sat in the aisles for the entire trip. The woman in the aisle next to us sat up perfectly straight on her bag of belongings with a one-year-old child in her arms for the entire journey. Her head bobbed in a constant rhythm as she fought off sleep, lacking a place to lay her weary head. I think I can speak for us all when I say that Sucre has the sweetest, softest soil I've ever felt beneath my feet.