The past month flew by… I didn’t even think about checking my email, or writing a blog. It was without a doubt one of the best months of my life. The day after Christmas, my boyfriend Chris flew from New York’s JFK airport, to the Miami airport and then finally in to the Viru Viru airport in Santa Cruz Bolivia, where I was waiting for him. After more than 8 months I felt my stomach flipping as I watched for his silhouette through the shaded glass doors. Within the first minute that he walked into the waiting room I knew that it was going to be an amazing month- and it was.
We first spent a few days in a fancy hotel in Santa Cruz with a big pool, air conditioning (to ease Chris into the Santa Cruz heat) and a bathroom with a hairdryer and a sink that hot, warm and cold water comes from (this is now mind blowing to me). We were incredibly happy to be together again, and even the simplest things were wonderful.
From this nice hotel we set out to begin our real Bolivian adventures. We traveled to a small town in the valleys of the Andes Mountains called Samaipata. It is about 2 hours away from Santa Cruz up a long, windy, narrow road by shared taxi. Here Chris got his first experience of Bolivian driving. He also got to see me in action arguing with the taxi driver about leaving our luggage on top of the roof when it started raining. (I have become pretty forceful about getting what I want-in a good way, especially in Spanish) When we arrived in Samaipata we were stunned by the beautiful mountains surrounding us, and interested in the quaint pueblo, which reminded me of an old western ski town. We stayed at a wonderful hostel that served breakfasts of fresh fruit, real French bread and homemade blackberry jam. Overall, the eating in Samaipata was very good. Groups of foreigners have moved in (mostly Dutch, German and French) supposedly because of the good energy that surrounds the nearby Incan ruins. We were very happy about this because we ate some of our best meals in Bolivia here. Besides eating we spent our time relaxing, reading and hiking. Andres, the owner of the hostel took us on an amazing hike with a couple of other people. In this hike (seen in the pictures) we hiked up a small mountain outside of town. From here we had the most gorgeous view of the foothills of the Andes on all sides of us. Then we continued along a mountain ridge and descended on the other side, finding beautiful waterfalls, and Bolivian beach volleyball- an amazing hike! The only bad part of this trip was that Chris got a sickness, which seemed like a shortened version of Dengue to me. After a few days of rest, he was feeling better and we went on to San José.
It was so great to have Chris in San José. Here he got to see and understand my daily life. He met most of my neighborhood and family friends. He got to see what a typical day is like for me, how frustrated I can get waiting at the local government for meetings, which often end up being nothing to do with me or my projects. He got to see that sometimes no matter how hard I want to do work and progress on projects, I will have no support, or be told that it is a bad time. He got to experience the daily weird, unexpected things that I have now come to accept. For example one day we went for a walk down the dirt road, which I run on every day. All of a sudden we started smelling a really bad smell, and I mean a really bad smell. We noticed something that looked like an organ on the ground in front of us. A few steps later we noticed another, and then another. We decided that something had definitely been dragged down the road. The smell continued to get worse and worse, until we saw the culprit, the remains of a pig’s body which had been stripped and picked apart. Gross! Later we encountered an even bigger surprise, a 6 + foot snake slithered out on the road in front of us. He continued on his way pretty fast, but we saw enough of him to be freaked out! After a couple of relaxing weeks of cooking, hiking and just plain living in San José we traveled up to visit a couple of Peace Corps friend’s sites in the region.
We spent a day in Robore drinking cafesitos provided by my friend Abe and took a dip in the local swimming hole before heading up to Santiago. I may have mentioned my love for Santiago before, and with Chris it was even better. Strangely enough Santiago has a 5 star hotel even though it is a pueblo of 1000 people. We stayed in the most beautiful hotel room ever at the price of 25 US dollars a night. (Pretty steep for here!!)In Santiago we did some more great hiking and spent some time with my Peace Corps/Fordham friend Josh Lincoln. The climate in Santiago is a little cooler than in San José, making for some wonderful day hikes and cozy nights. Before we knew it was time to head back to San José and then back to Santa Cruz!
Some of the most memorable moments during Chris’s visit:
1. The tension waiting for him to come
2. His crazy jungle fever in Samaipata- practically carrying him home from New Years dinner
3. The Huuuuuge snake
4. A crazy cholita (the traditionally native dressed woman) dwarf unprovoked attack on Chris’s leg in Santa Cruz
5. Our homemade pizza competition, which was done mostly by the light of my headlamp and candles because of a power outtage- we declared a tie- but Chris’s sesame crust, chicken and pepper pizza may have beat out my more traditional garden veggie delight,
6. Can- Can Jumps at Los Pozos
7. Arriving in San José expecting to find Chris’s Christmas Hammock mostly finished by the artisan, but instead seeing that it was only about 3 inches long… and the multiple trips to speed along the work that followed
8. Chicken dinners at Pollo Monica- especially trying to make friends with the wooden stake-throwing boy
9. The luxurious life that comes with American money- fancy dinners, fancy hotels, large pools and saunas!
10. Enjoying the vida tranquila- siestas, yoga, waking up everyday to decide what we wanted to do….
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