Our World Wide Adventures: August 2005

One of the traditional large greasy meals in Bolivia `a planchita`.

Cochabamba - Bolivia

The whole reason for coming and staying a while in this town was so that Ian could undertake a 5 day solo paragliding course. The instructor couldn´t speak English except for left and right, so of course Ian was learning the important instructions in Spanish quite quickly! Well now I´m playing nurse maid because Ian took a tumble on a stuffed up take off (off a mountain). Real shame as he had completed 3 of the 5 day course. I think he´ll have to hang his parachute up for good. He hurt his back (to what extent we don´t really know), but some bruising on his leg has taken days to come out. He has trouble walking around much without having to sit down, which is unusual, as usually when his back gives him trouble (which is about once a year) he has more comfort standing as the pressure is off the already damaged disc. For those of you who don´t know, Ian actually broke his back about 8 years ago, and does have metal work. I am having to give him injections!!!! They are supposed to help with him pain relief (but his unsure whether he thinks they really are!) With the 1st injection I had to give, he was taking sooo long just to find a flabby spot (hopefully without bone), it was making me sooo nervous. The needle is long and thick, so that was making him nervous. Gave it to him in the bum, and the breaking of the skin was the hardest part, and then everything else felt like slow motion. He continues to have a numb leg and foot. I continue to have an issue of the first part of breaking the skin! He has to have 6! So we are spending a lot of time in our room, reading, playing cards, but mostly watching movies and CNN. When we venture out for meals, we catch taxi´s! Hence we haven´t moved on, spending about 10 days here, and are just taking it day by day. There is the Torotoro National Park that we had wanted to visit, but there are only 2 local buses a week, and the journey is 7 hours on a terrible road. The next possible day we can go is Sunday. Ian´s in slight denial thinking that maybe we will be able to go then. Of course we never made it.

After meeting Naomi in Sucre, we also spent time with her in Cochabumba. This was our Turkish farewell dinner.

Ian learning to paraglide. It all ended in tears, large injections, which I gave, and many days hardly walking

Potosi - Bolivia

We back tracked on ourselves 3 hours to a town called Potosi, although we took the one carriage train that took 6 hours, for the amazing scenery. The place to visit in Potosi is the mines. It is a working silver mine where the Spanish killed 8 million Bolivian and African slaves. The toxins in the mine over a 10 year period apparently kills off the workers, so we saw what the conditions are like. You get kitted up in yellow plastic wet weather gear, a hard hat and the old fashion flame light that is generated from some powder mixed with water. Initially when I saw other tours with their sexy looking battery operated head torches, I thought that ours were povo. But actually they are better for safety, as the flame changes colour if there are bad gases in the mines. We were taken to buy gifts for the miners such as coca leaves (which helps them cope better underground, suppresses hunger and thirst and gives them more energy), dynamite (as its so expensive and they have to buy their own), and fizzy pop. As we drove up the mountain to approx. 4300 mtrs we were encouraged to chew coco leaves. I firstly said ´I don´t think so´, knowing that when Ian had done this before, his breathe smelled of poo. But the guide insisted and said that I would need it. So here I was chewing on leaf after leaf and keeping it in one cheek. They even had us make stops in the mine to continue chewing some new ones to add to my bolging mouth. Before we went in, they gave us a dynamite explosion demonstration. Ian had the pleasure of molding it in a ball, and helped to set it alight, and then run. Although I was expecting it, it still scared the shit out of me. Ian was quite breatheless after his flee for his life, as the high altitude does make it sometimes difficult to breathe. We walked approx. 200 mtrs into the mine. Half of the group turned back and chose not to continue. As it is a working mine we had to, on numerous occasions, hug the mine walls, or quickly move to a spot with space to do this, as the mine trolleys were at times run through the mines by groups of 4 miners at a time. We even climbed down some dodgy wooden ladders to a level below to talk with miners, and give them gifts. You had to be careful not to burn your hands with your head torch (flame) as you were climbing the ladder and trying to see where you were putting your feet. The mine in parts were both really cold (near the top) and really hot (further down). I don´t think I would have coped so well without chewing the coca leaves. We spent approx. two and a half hours in the mine. It was really interesting. Not as safety conscious as the one we went down in Kalgoorlie in Western Australia!! Our dusk masks were covered in black stuff, so I was thankful we had asked to purchase some beforehand.

The mines were quite small in parts. We had to chew coca leaves the whole time to help with the altitude and environment.

Young men work in these mines all their short lives with old fashioned tools. This guy had been drilling a hole with a hammer for 2 hours.

Ian playing with dynamite at the mines at Potosi. He then lit it and ran like hell!

Sucre - Bolivia

I´m starting my third week of Spanish lessons this week. I´ve had both morning (8.15am-12.15pm) and afternoon classes (2.30pm-6.30pm). There is a lot to learn! At the moment I´m learning what verb to use dependentant upon whether you are talking about something that is permanent or temporary (I know!!!!!!!). I´ve learnt to count to 100, I know my fruit, some parts of the body, and my colors. I´m learning how to string sentences together (which is not so easy), because there are masculine and feminine words, and it depends on what you put before it and possibly the words after it (whether its singular or plural also determines things), i.e. la nina es alta (the girl is tall) las ninas son altas ( the girls are tall) - Feminine. El nino es alto (the boy is tall) los ninos son altos (the boys are tall) Masculine. See what I mean - difficult!! The town that we are staying in in Bolivia (Sucre) is lovely, old colonial, and the weather during the day is really sunny and warm. I´ve had a cold on and off for a couple of weeks, so it will be much better when this clears up. I´ve managed to go to the chemist and explain in Spanish that I had a cold, cough and sore head, nose and throat. I had to have Ian with me to help me understand the responses, i.e. take this medicine three times a day, the tablets dissolved in a little water (I actually got this one on my own) in the morning and night and the powder morning and night. My only Spanish practicing practise out of class has been really when I have been on my own and trying to buy stuff. I am getting really good at explaining at the pharmacy (as I´ve been 3 times now!) what is wrong, how long for etc., ie.Estoy resfrieda (I have a cold). Hace dos semansa (I have had it for 2 weeks), hace una semana medicina (Already had one week of medicine), tengo no dolar garganta, solo mas tos (I do not have a sore throat, just a bad cough), en la noche no..... (in the night no..... then I give the charades for sleeping, and my hands in the air to show that I am very awake!). Then they talk a lot of which I do not understand!!! So I just have to repeat myself a few times, insist on medicine (a couple of locals, ie. my teacher and our hostel manager have both said no tablets), and then inspect the packaging to see Spanish any spanish words make sense. Last time I tried on my own I walked out with tablets that had the words for inflammatory on the packet (in spanish) and I knew straight away that it was wrong, and I could not be arsed going back in again! This time I knew that what ever long word in Spanish that I assumed was flem, I would say no to, because I guess it was actually meaning inflam... We´ve done a few activities over the weekends. Sat. we went to a local quarry where there are a variety of dinosaur tracks on a huge wall. The wall used to be the ground and a volcano and tectonic movement pushed it up and made it a wall. It´s very fascinating! The quarry is still being used, and tracks appear and disappear as the layers are taken off. Sun. we caught a local bus to another village, which was one and a half hours away. The purpose was to go to a Sunday market at Tarabocco. All I bought was a very small purse, and Ian bought a rug (as he is into his soft furnishings!). The girls that we went with (Naomi from Perth and Karen from Boston) bought heaps. Naomi has been in Ian´s Spanish class, so we have been spending loads of time with her. She is living with a family. A lot of students are. We tend to spend a lot of time with other students after class, and have meals with them. The meals all vary. For breakie (oh its getting exciting isn´t it!) at our hostel we get either yoghat and banana or somethings egg, and two rolls, and tea. I quite enjoy this. For lunch you have a choice of either having something of a normal portion, or having a 4 course cheap Bolivian meal, (as the Bolivians have their main meal at lunch time) and then something smaller for dinner. Bolivian food can be quite plain, no accompliments (sauces), potatoes and not much else in vegetables and rice, and meat. ie. for lunch the other day we had one chicken drum stick, potatos, rice and salad. Soup is a popular meal here. Now I don´t eat the salad here (anything not cooked, as most travellers do the same - Ian doesn't though, and does not seem to be having any consequences from it. Unless it is a westerner restaurant where they tend to let you know that they have washed the salad in bottled water. There is a really nice Italian place close to us with great pasta. There seems to be a number of Dutch and German owned places here too. We still have some museums to see, and one place plays movies some nights. Big night out Friday night. An American student called Karen whom we have been spending loads of time with, was leaving. The girls (incl. myself) all took a Salsa lesson and then met everyone else to go out. A couple of the teachers came too, and whilst at the karoke bar, the salsa teacher got me up (of course because of the talent he had seen in the class!) and it was great, he had me spinning like in Rock and Roll, and of course everyone thought it was great! Even a middle aged man, as he was leaving, came up and told me I was ....muy bien...very good. My calves and the backs of my knees today are VERY sore. I went home at 2am and Ian got home at 6am. Hence we had a huge sleep in the following morning, which we have not done since we got here, and only ventured out at 3pm for a huge and very nice pasta meal. August the 6th is Bolivia´s Independance Day so there has been celebration parades throughout the week around the streets. All the Schools and even the orphanges have been marching. Learning music must be very important here, as there were heaps of kids playing different instruments.

The huge night out in Sucre with all the students we met at the Spanish School. Naomi, Salsa teacher Roberto, Sian, John, Gero, Karen, Lisa, me, Ian, Andy and Yvonne