To Bolivia and Beyond!

Sorry it's been so long since the last update. It's been quite a busy couple of weeks. My host family had extended family from Seattle visiting for about 2 weeks. One "cousin" was my age, so he kept me busy, but it was fun. His father does touristic stuff around Cochabamba and was nice enough to bring us on a brief "business trip" to the jungle for an overnight and quick day journey. The trip took us 3 1/2 hours over a mountain to Villa Tunari. As you can see from the pictures below, we were in the clouds at one point, making the driving leap of faith.

oh, hey bus, with no lights coming out of a cloud...

evo morales graffiti (president)

Josh and his dad, Gustavo

hotel

Parque Machia, animal refuge

Walking tree http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socratea_exorrhiza

From the top of the mountain/animal refuge

The monkey, who we named Frank Sinatra, followed us all the way to the top

Crazy human-like!

This is Brenda's happy face....pre-getting peed on! Pobrecita

I can't tell you how happy I was when he decided to climb on up my arm!

To use the bathroom at a restaurant we had to walk through someone's backyard..

At the end of our day we went swimming/bridge jumping here, where people were bathing, doing laundry, swimming, and fishing!

We had a national Dia del Peaton (Pedestrian Day) on Sunday September 2nd, where the WHOLE country (can you imagine?) whole country banned vehicles from 8:30am to 5:30pm. It was so surreal, I can't even put it into words! We went out bike riding and then walked around for the rest of the day. I've never had a sunburn on my hands before this! That's what you get for riding a bike in high altitude, exposing the backs of your hands for hours! Here are some borrowed pictures (Credit to Alex Foley and Jonathon McCarthy)

Stay classy, stay busy, Bolivian Police...

Wednesday at work we presented a new book of "Good Practices" to the Cochabamba government, regarding HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment in Bolivia....let's hope they read it!