Friday, April 1, 2011
Tarija
After our two plus memorable months in Sucre, we headed on down further south to Tarija. We arrived early in the morning, arrived at the central plaza and with the advice from a local police officer, headed toward the central market for breakfast. Little did we know, that buy stepping into the breakfast area of the market we would also be stepping in to an addiction. For pastelles and sopapillas. They are nothing but deep-fried dough, one filled with cheese, the other just straight up deepfried. Doesn´t sound special, but our unquenchable desire to consume them was. Fortunately we curbed back after a week bender, and continued onto a more healthy, routine breakfast diet. Also what was noticable from the start, was how nice the citizens of Tarija were. Immediately upon sitting down with our first plate of pastelles and coffee, where we approached buy a couple who worked around the area, and they offered us any help they could, and from there it was just a taste of things to come, as everyone we came into contact with greeted you with a smile and sincere questions. The hospitality of the people of Tarija will always be looked back upon as one of the highlights of our trip. One of the low points of our trip was the hostal we stayed at there, which was very unclean and underconstruction, but hey what the heck, we´re in Bolivia after all. We stayed there two nights, and then after contacting our volunteer host, we headed a bit out of town to a little hostal ¨La Tribu¨ where we could camp in the yard at a lower cost. We stayed there almost a week, and met many great people. The place seemed to be a gathering point for vagabonding Argentines and they slowly taught us some artesenia weavings which kept us preoccupied while we waited for our volunteering to start. El Jardin Saborati is where our volunteering to place, an urban organic garen run by Mauricio Chavez, who provided us with a place to sleep and breakfast in exchange for four hours of work, five days a week. At first the work took a bit getting used to as we had been spending the last month and a half hiking nearly four days a week, and now were basically just stooped over in a lawn pulling out weeds. And my oh my were there weeds. The actual area in Mauricios inclosed urban garden that was dedicated to growing plants was about 1/5th of the total area. The other 4/5th´s, weeds knee high. It took us the first week to pull the weeds, and sift the soil, but after that first week, we acclimated pretty well to our new enviroment, and then really were able to have some fun, planting and learning and expermementing with recipies of both Mauricio and our own. More to come later.....
Sucre in a nutshell
Geez, SOMEONE, cough cough, (can you guess who?) did not do so well with the last post, didn`t even finish the first trek! Anyhow, more than a month this time, record for the longest period of time without a post :( Two weeks until we are back in the states and less than halfway through the trip, we need to get blogging!
The first trek was just that, the first of many, though not at first. When we first got to Sucre there were about 12 volunteers, all gringos (New Zealand, Australia, Britain, France, Switzerland, Spain, and fellow USAers) and it was a zoo! With so many of us, there was little organization, and not enough to do. For each trek, the volunteers prepare all of the meals and the packs the night before. Most "prep nights" in the beginning went until about 1am with a few people in the kitchen cooking stir fry and making pasta sauce, maybe one person in the other room putting the pack together, and about six people sitting around the dining room table very slowly chopping vegetables while very quickly drinking their beer, wine, whisky, etc. You can see why the preps went so late into the night! For the volunteer that was accompanying the guide at 5am the next morning to help carry the packs on the trek, it was a rough night and morning! With so many of us, after our first trek, it was not "our turn" to go on another trek for two more weeks. That left us pretty bored in Sucre, and we found Sucre is not the best town to be bored in. Upon arrival, we were both sick (aka, stomachs never happy) for a good part of the time we were in Sucre (2 and a half months!). We also found that local Sucreños are not the most warm and friendly people in Bolivia. Perhaps they are not happy that there are so many gringos in their town, I dont know. It is also a very congested city with narrow sidewalks and people walk SLOW. There are also no public bathrooms so pretty much everyone pees right out on the street leaving a foul smell of urine in the air. These may sound like minor things, I realize, but when you have little to do but focus on the negative, they add up! We were also not accustomed to spending 24/7 together. With boredom, that was not a good combination. We would basically take turns being negative and started to drive each other crazy. After one month in Sucre, around Christmas, we reached our boiling point. Both of us were talking to our parents, not sure if we wanted to continue with the trip. We had a few good long conversations with each other as well and with patience and a renewed effort to be positive and work on a few things, we decided to persevere.
After Christmas, over half of the volunteers moved on with their travels. That left us with six of us, another American couple (Mark and Jen), an American girl (Elsa), and Patrick (from New Zealand). We had a VERY memorable New Years which included a dinner party at Randall`s friends house, good food, huge fireworks that we shot off, and afterwards, live music, fireworks and dancing in the central plaza until 3am! I wont soon forget dancing and realizing that we were quite the spectacle for the Bolivians. None of them were dancing, just surrounding our circle and staring at us!
Anyhow, the next month in Sucre was markedly better than the first. With just six of us, we were quite busy and able to go on one to two treks a week. With an average of three to four days of intense hiking each week, that also meant that we were in great shape! I must say that the six of us were much more organized, Jen in particular, as well. A clean kitchen and all spice jars correctly labeled are thanks to her. Working together so much, we also got to know each other very well. Almost too well, in fact. By mid January we were partying pretty frequently and peaked one Sunday afternoon at a local soccer game. This was a family affair and Nick was falling into the crowd, Elsa, Jen and I were doing inappropriate things with a sucker, and Mark probably should have been kept away from all ladies that were not his girlfriend, Jen. By 6pm, Nick was passed out on the steps of the volunteer house (he erased the photo from my camera of course) and Jen was gone to the world as well, but not before getting sick. That left Elsa and I, the most sober to clean up the mess! You would think lessons would have been learned, but Nick and Mark just took off from there and got a bit out of control (which even Nick admits to now). Fortunately after a week of that, they came to and got a bit more respectable. Sucre was great for a good many lessons! Our time in Sucre wrapped up with Agelen`s, (Lidia, the receptionist of CondorTrekkers, her daughter) 7th birthday! I baked a pink cake, the office was thoroughly decorated, including a great sign made by Nick, a bike was mutually purchased and we surprised her! She was so happy and so so thankful too, she is one of the sweetest kids we`ve met and it was so fun to see her trying out her new bike and reading her cards. The last couple days were spent going to our favorite restaurants (Lupita`s, a "Mexican" place, and Napoli`s, where we always got calzones) and continuing with the volunteer work. We had one last short trek, which topped them all as the worst (think 5 horrible complaining Frenchies, getting lost due to poor guiding, and me puking over the side of the passenger (livestock) truck on the way back!) Memorable, to say the least. And then, first of February, we were off to our next adventure, wwoofing (organic farming) in Tarija, Bolivia`s wine country!
The first trek was just that, the first of many, though not at first. When we first got to Sucre there were about 12 volunteers, all gringos (New Zealand, Australia, Britain, France, Switzerland, Spain, and fellow USAers) and it was a zoo! With so many of us, there was little organization, and not enough to do. For each trek, the volunteers prepare all of the meals and the packs the night before. Most "prep nights" in the beginning went until about 1am with a few people in the kitchen cooking stir fry and making pasta sauce, maybe one person in the other room putting the pack together, and about six people sitting around the dining room table very slowly chopping vegetables while very quickly drinking their beer, wine, whisky, etc. You can see why the preps went so late into the night! For the volunteer that was accompanying the guide at 5am the next morning to help carry the packs on the trek, it was a rough night and morning! With so many of us, after our first trek, it was not "our turn" to go on another trek for two more weeks. That left us pretty bored in Sucre, and we found Sucre is not the best town to be bored in. Upon arrival, we were both sick (aka, stomachs never happy) for a good part of the time we were in Sucre (2 and a half months!). We also found that local Sucreños are not the most warm and friendly people in Bolivia. Perhaps they are not happy that there are so many gringos in their town, I dont know. It is also a very congested city with narrow sidewalks and people walk SLOW. There are also no public bathrooms so pretty much everyone pees right out on the street leaving a foul smell of urine in the air. These may sound like minor things, I realize, but when you have little to do but focus on the negative, they add up! We were also not accustomed to spending 24/7 together. With boredom, that was not a good combination. We would basically take turns being negative and started to drive each other crazy. After one month in Sucre, around Christmas, we reached our boiling point. Both of us were talking to our parents, not sure if we wanted to continue with the trip. We had a few good long conversations with each other as well and with patience and a renewed effort to be positive and work on a few things, we decided to persevere.
After Christmas, over half of the volunteers moved on with their travels. That left us with six of us, another American couple (Mark and Jen), an American girl (Elsa), and Patrick (from New Zealand). We had a VERY memorable New Years which included a dinner party at Randall`s friends house, good food, huge fireworks that we shot off, and afterwards, live music, fireworks and dancing in the central plaza until 3am! I wont soon forget dancing and realizing that we were quite the spectacle for the Bolivians. None of them were dancing, just surrounding our circle and staring at us!
Anyhow, the next month in Sucre was markedly better than the first. With just six of us, we were quite busy and able to go on one to two treks a week. With an average of three to four days of intense hiking each week, that also meant that we were in great shape! I must say that the six of us were much more organized, Jen in particular, as well. A clean kitchen and all spice jars correctly labeled are thanks to her. Working together so much, we also got to know each other very well. Almost too well, in fact. By mid January we were partying pretty frequently and peaked one Sunday afternoon at a local soccer game. This was a family affair and Nick was falling into the crowd, Elsa, Jen and I were doing inappropriate things with a sucker, and Mark probably should have been kept away from all ladies that were not his girlfriend, Jen. By 6pm, Nick was passed out on the steps of the volunteer house (he erased the photo from my camera of course) and Jen was gone to the world as well, but not before getting sick. That left Elsa and I, the most sober to clean up the mess! You would think lessons would have been learned, but Nick and Mark just took off from there and got a bit out of control (which even Nick admits to now). Fortunately after a week of that, they came to and got a bit more respectable. Sucre was great for a good many lessons! Our time in Sucre wrapped up with Agelen`s, (Lidia, the receptionist of CondorTrekkers, her daughter) 7th birthday! I baked a pink cake, the office was thoroughly decorated, including a great sign made by Nick, a bike was mutually purchased and we surprised her! She was so happy and so so thankful too, she is one of the sweetest kids we`ve met and it was so fun to see her trying out her new bike and reading her cards. The last couple days were spent going to our favorite restaurants (Lupita`s, a "Mexican" place, and Napoli`s, where we always got calzones) and continuing with the volunteer work. We had one last short trek, which topped them all as the worst (think 5 horrible complaining Frenchies, getting lost due to poor guiding, and me puking over the side of the passenger (livestock) truck on the way back!) Memorable, to say the least. And then, first of February, we were off to our next adventure, wwoofing (organic farming) in Tarija, Bolivia`s wine country!
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