I'm in Arequipa right now and don't have my computer with me. So I won't have pictures for this one, but thought I'd give you all a good laugh anyway. :) Hopefully I can add pictures once I get back home.
So I went to Santa Cruz, Bolivia with my friend Marisol to visit her brother Alfredo, who is working in a children's home and studying there. We left on Sunday night, January 4, at 10 PM on a bus, en route to La Paz, Bolivia, the first leg of our journey. We crossed the border with no problems whatsoever (thank you Jesus!) and about 2 hours later, pulled into La Paz. Arriving in the bus terminal there, we decided to look for tickets for Santa Cruz. After hearing from about two bus lines that there were no tickets, I decided to ask why and was informed that there were landslides on the road to Santa Cruz and no buses were going there. We asked what our other options were and were told that we could go to Cochabamba in a bus and then get a smaller van from there to take us to Santa Cruz. That was the only way, short of flying. We opted for the bus, since it seemed like a reliable option. There was a bus leaving in about half an hour, so we bought tickets and headed out of La Paz less than an hour after arriving. Wow!
7 hours later, around 8:30, we arrived in Cochabamba. Inquiring about vans headed to Santa Cruz, we were told that there was one leaving immediately. It was expensive, but "guaranteed" to get us there. So we loaded all our stuff in. The only place for it was right where our feet needed to go. So we put our feet on top and I tried to find a comfortable angle to stretch out my feet without putting them in anyone else's personal space....hmmm....hard to do when there are 8 people in a minivan with luggage and all. We traveled out of Cochabamba, to the tune of an older woman of obvious Quechua descent who was making sure the driver knew he could not drive too fast or too dangerously. For about 2 hours, we traveled in this fashion, until we stopped, thanks to a traffic jam. The driver got out, leaving his 7 passengers trying to find sleep in a stuffed van with a man who snored very determinedly. We sat there for about 3 hours till we could finally go. Traveling about a half an hour more, we got stuck again. This time, we decided to wait out the rest of the night (only a few hours at this point) and see what would happen in the morning. Later I found out that we were stopped due to the fact that there had been a landslide and part of the road had fallen out of place and was now completely impassable. In the early morning, no one was exactly sure when there would be a way through or if there would be. So we decided the best bet was to walk. We joined the human stream of people flowing towards the site of the landslide. It turned into a human river the closer we got. We ended up walking for 2 hours, carrying all our stuff, shifting it between us in order to avoid our muscles from getting too sore from carrying too much weight for too long. We tried at one point to wrap up all my stuff in my blanket so I could carry it more easily on my back. We had to try about 3 times to get it all comfortable, much to the amusement of the people from the country who were sitting there watching this gringa try to get a large load on her back, with much assistance from my friend Marisol. We finally got it on and I started walking, only to realize that the material in my blanket was highly stretchy and my load was shifting lower and lower and lower. We abandoned the idea quickly, laughing all the while. Finally, we reached the site of the landslide and waited for the road equipment to finish working so we could go across to the other side. Arriving on the other side, we decided we didn't want to walk the 7 kilometers that apparently were still between us and a bus that would take us to Santa Cruz. So we took motorcycles conveniently parked there and doing quite a brisk business shuttling people back and forth. Minutes later, the motorcycle drivers deposited us at the makeshift bus stop where buses were heading back to Santa Cruz, after having lost their passengers in the mass of people moving to where we had just come from. We found a bus leaving right away, a regular city bus. The next 9 hours or so were spent traveling on this bus (which became very uncomfortable after about 7 hours), which finally took us to Santa Cruz.
The first thing we did after arriving was call Alfredo, who was waiting for us at another bus terminal. While waiting for him to come, I discovered that Bolivia is the land of unexpected ups and downs when the sidewalk and I had a close encounter. End result: a skinned knee and a nice little hole in my sweatpants. :( Welcome to Santa Cruz.
The rest of the day went much better. We took a much-needed shower and went to the mall to watch a movie. It ws good to see Alfredo again. I knew him when I was here with YES, but hadn't gotten to reconnect till now, beyond email and facebook.
We asked Alfredo what he wanted to eat from Peru. He immediately answered aji de gallina, which is like chicken in a yellow sauce, served with rice and potatoes. You gotta understand that Marisol hates cooking and I don't know how to do it very well. So we got our heads together. After getting all the ingredients, we began to cook. Between the two of us, we made it, though we had a moment of panic when the aji sauce turned out super salty. A little more bread and milk and some more boiling took care of that one. Two heads are definitely better than one.
The week was spent getting to know some of the people and places that are a part of Santa Cruz. One day we visited the random sand dunes that are plunked down in the middle of the countryside outside the city. Before we got to see the dunes, however we spent an hour pushing Alfredo's friend Noel's taxi out of the sand where it got severely stuck. Thanks to some ingenious engineering involving flip flops, sticks, water, car jacks and stones (some successful and some not so much), we got the car unstuck and went to see the dunes, which were beautiful and rather mystifying, seeing as how I have no idea how God dropped all that sand there.
Another day, we went to see Las Cabañas, a collection of restaurants housed in thatched-roofed huts with no walls, serving typical Bolivian food. Yummy!
We spent lots of time walking around downtown Santa Cruz, enjoying the scenery and shopping. We saw several movies and spent time getting to know Alfredo's friens. Mari wanted to stay longer, but I needed to leave earlier to get back to Arequipa for the missionary retreat. So I decided to fly part of the way back. Sunday morning at 6:30, I flew out of the Santa Cruz airport, landing in La Paz 1 hour later. From there, I got a van to the border, about 2 hours away. The van dropped me off about half a mile from the border, but I had no idea where to go, so I took a tricycle - basically like a big, 3-wheeled bike with a large wooden box in front, pedaled by a driver, in which I and all my stuff could fit. Thankfully, I had another uneventful border crossing (it's always kind of nerve-wracking to cross the border with nothing but a Peruvian green card. I'm never quite sure if they're going to accept it as valid. So far I haven't had any problems, but I have friends who have.) From the border, I found a bus headed to Arequipa. 9 hours later, around 8 PM, I arrived in Arequipa. The Arequipan taxi driver who "just happened to" be sitting next to me on the bus, and to whom I had a chance to talk about God, helped me find a taxi to take me to my hotel and made sure he didn't charge me too much.
And so it all worked out. Yes, I had adventure. But, despite all the craziness, traveling actually went pretty smoothly. I never had to wait more than half an hour to find any kind of transportation. I always had people there who knew what they were doing. And I had a big God by my side. And I need to go because the computer battery is dying quickly. Blessings to you all and hopefully pictures will come soon!
