For some reason these uploaded backwards... scroll to bottom to start, and go up!!
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end of part one...go to the following entry for more!
bag o' apple juice..... everything comes in bags here...as far as beverages go, not including sodas... bags of water, juice, yogurt, milk, you just tear off the corner with your teeth, squeeze the bag and down your drink. the only downside is you have to finish it right then. or if youre lucky put it in your water bottle. they do sell juices and waters in bottles, but because its more plastic it costs more... for example a bag of water this size costs 50 bolivian cents, where as a normal water bottle costs 3.50-5.50 bolivianos. so for trips like this i buy one water bottle and a few bags to put in the bottle when i need more.
our bag lunch Doña Lily the owner of Las Hermanas hostel made us
can you imagine this was once a river completely full of water and ice? its soooo deep!! about 800 feet
if you look hard enough you'll see them..
they always fly in pairs. just tiny specks of bursting color floating through the canyon
macaws...natural...free... in their element
I cant explain the beauty I saw. My camera can't come close to doing it justice. And to sit there in silence (or almost silence... you could hear the water below and macaws squaking across the way..) and just feel how old this place is and close your eyes and imagine dinosaurs walking where you were just walking. or vice versa rather. Incredible.
this tree split this rock in 2! it was one strong little seed
Victor, our guide, was talking about when theres no water you can see that theres a little shelf in the side of the footprint due to when the foot was taken out the mud kinda enveloped over itself.. you can see the front footprint and the back footprint almost overlap because of the way they walked, one foot followed the other. above you'll see an example with the toy... i just loved that he had a backpack full of little dinos
the biggest dino prints in Bolivia diplodocus or apatosaurus
natural bridge...with a man made stone support under it. too many people have crossed it. now its weak.
its kinda cool it rained so hard...there wouldnt have been 1 drop of water there if we had arrived a day earlier
but we walked down the higher level river bed
the waterfall we didnt get to see up close..too much water to go down into the canyon
green and purple sediment
Toro
if you look at the round mountains in the back, this happened due to how ice melted and eroded the land
green sand
brontesaurus
another raptor
parasoralophus tracks
parasoralophus
some really neat flora
this prints are raised up due to the weight of the animal it compressed the mud and eventually the mud around them washed away
type of prehistoric emu print
velociraptor
stegosaurus...Torotoro used to be a flat plain but is right on a subversive tectonic plate which has created the mountains and caves you'll see later on
Torotoro comes from the Quechua turu turu which means mud mud...saying the word twice means "really" or even more emphasis on the word...so Torotoro is really muddy...and has been for millions of years, which is how the dino prints you'll see in a second were created
there was no water here the day before
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After a breakfast of Coca tea and homemade bread baked in an adobe oven outside, with homemade jam, we met with our guide and began our modified hike to find dinosaurs.. look I found one in the town square! 
there was hail the day before. quite the contrast to Cochabamba!
Old chicha (a grape alcohol) barrel
grapefruit and lemon trees
squash
pomegranates
Last Friday night Bram, a fellow volunteer from Belgium, his German friend from work Jakob, and Jakob's Belgian girlfriend Maya and I all hopped on a 6 hour bus ride to Torotoro, Potosí, another province, about 170km from Cochabamba. Due to the roads, terrain, and rain, it took us about 6 1/2 hours to go those 170 km. When we woke up in the morning we woke to a chilly downpour. We had to ammend our activities a little. This is a view from the hostel balcony
our shared bike... we had only 4 bikes this time around between about 15 volunteers
xmas palm
artesan vendors
Plaza Colón
merry xmas to you too, america.
open air concert
teeeny tiny zampoñas...traditional Bolivian instrument in miniature
we just HAD to get a picture of Bre in her beautiful summer dress with the Christmas stuff....soooo weird to us!!
Nico and I bought some new shades for about $2.80 each
it got quite warm that afternoon..about 87
The next day was the 3rd and last día de peatón (pedestrian day). If you remember back to September that was my 1st, CBBA's (cochabamba = cbba for future reference) 2nd day. They decided this past one would be the last because, although it really did cut down on emissions by prohibiting motor vehicles throughout the country for 10 hours, the amount of trash left on the streets wasn't worth it. People really don't understand littereing and recycling here. If you walk down the street you'll see someone eating a yogurt or chips and just toss the wrapper anywhere when they're done. From bus windows, walking, anything.
It poured and poured for the majority of the game, yet still sunny. The rain and wind made for some difficult passes We were absolutely soaked.
I brought little bro with
Two weeks ago on a Saturday we had our first Cochabamba Ultimate Frisbee game...here are the 2 teams.
This is Gabriel. he is a peer educator for MSM. (men who have sex with men)
This was my "goodbye" (despedida) dinner from Vivo en Positivo, a week after I left there. This is Oscar and Paulina (my prevention bosses)
Lars, aka Spiderman, made it to the top in less than a minute... I won't mention I hung out at the bottom for about 10 minutes trying to get to the next handhold...
"okay I'm stuck and I'm scared now"......."this is so much harder than it looks"
this is the view from the top (you could walk around and up--but I could have lied and said I climbed all the way up!)
this is what I attempted to climb
this is Lars.
most airfresheners are printed with the American flag.... America smells nice I guess?
Good evening, folks. If you
start here and scroll up, yes backwards, you will find this post more or less in chronological order. I don't know why, but they uploaded backwards and there are too many for me to want to sit here and move them one by one, or reload them (as this was my 3rd attempt at uploading!!)
Here's an update from about the past month or so. I met a guy dancing one Friday night, named Lars, Norwegian-Bolivian, (weird right? apparently he was a navy seal in Norway and now lives here..) and he invited me to go rock climbing the next day out at Lago Angostura about 45 minutes outside of the city of Cochabamba. So I hungoverly made my way to meet him Saturday afternoon at the postoffice downtown. We then caught a bus to La Cancha (the really big market), got off and storm troopered our way to the end of the market ( I say storm troopered because it's very obvious he was in special forces...always on a mission, manuevering more gracefully than I through the crowded tents.) So after about 10 minutes of walking we reach the near end of the market where there are supposed to be transportation to Tarata, in which Lago Angostura is about half way between Tarata and Cochabamba. It started to downpour and people ran at and crammed themselves like maniacs in the few trufis that were available. By chance, a friend of Lars' walked by and he happened to live on the lake. So we hopped in his jeep along with a bag of wriggling ducks, and made our way out to the campo (countryside). <scroll up now>
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