Avocados and Zebras (Paltas y Cebritas)

My last two blog entries have shared my weekend adventures but I wanted to give an update of what I’ve been doing on the weekdays!

My second week in La Paz I commuted to El Alto once again, but this time to Virgen Niña, a health and education center for kids with disabilities. I was blown away by the support this center provides for the kids. The center is complete with a clinic, classrooms with usually no more than 10 kids, a kitchen and various therapies. I spent most of my time in physical therapy and play therapy but there are also rooms for speech, psych, hydro and music therapy. In addition to learning about physical therapy techniques and playing with kids in the balloon pit for sensory and social stimulation, I spent time with kids in classrooms. Some classes are grouped based on disabilities, others are mixed. The center supports many kids with cerebral palsy, autism, down syndrome and other disabilities. I appreciated the focus on both health and education and felt compelled to go back and spend more time with the kids and the staff there. This week and next, my final two weeks in La Paz I am returning to Virgen Niña.

During week 2, Alison and I discovered Bits and Cream, a popular ice cream store here similar to cold stone. We took full advantage of the 2 for 1 Tuesdays. We also saw a Bolivian film called Averno! It was one of the weirdest and most confusing movies I have seen but it was most definitely entertaining. The protagonist, Tupah sets off to find his Uncle in Averno, a place in the Andean belief system where both living and dead coexist.

Alison and I with our Averno tickets!

Last week, I spent my mornings in the infectious disease unit in Hospital del Niño. Clark, Alison and I were all in separate units of the hospital so I got to know the 3 medical students who were also learning under Dr. Velasco. Participating in rounds, when the residents present the patients and their plan to the doctor, it was very difficult for me to understand. The combination of the speed at which the residents spoke and the medical terminology that I wouldn’t have understood in English, made this week a bit frustrating. Luckily I was able to mostly piece together what I observed when reviewing my notes with Alison at the end of the day. She’s going to be a great pediatrician :) Dr. Velasco was also a wonderful teacher and explained things in more detail to me. We talked about vaccines, HIV, bulbous impetigo, and Kawasaki disease.

Hospital Del Niño

Alison, Clark and I finally tried the gigantic avocados here, or paltas, with warm bread. Best avocado I’ve ever eaten and that’s saying something since I live in California. In Spanish class we tried Chirimoya, a fruit that is only found in Bolivia and a few other South American countries. I loved it but it gave me a bit of a stomach ache. 

The HUGE avocado and a Paceña beer (made in La Paz)

The chirimoya with the Spanish song we were listening to in class

On Thursday, Alison and I had a very cultural experience. We participated in La Paz Cebra Por un Día, or zebra for one day. In 2001, a group of 24 students dressed up as zebras, inspired by the black and white cross walks, to teach the people of La Paz about traffic safety with a positive and friendly spirit. Since then, the number of cebras or cebritas has grown and they can now be found in cities throughout La Paz. They are loved by many and are an important part of La Paz city culture. Gonzalo organized it for us and we were the first students of our program to ever participate. There was a group of about 20 of us: me, Alison and high school class with their teacher. We all sat in a circle for our orientation before we received our zebra suits. Orientation consisted of introductions, sharing why we wanted to be cebritas and an activity that got us on our feet and moving around. Then we were all given blindfolds and instructed to relax and breath through our noses. I cheated and opened my eyes briefly and underneath my blindfold I could see zebras walking around placing zebra suits and heads on the blindfolded students bodies. Then I felt the suit and head being laid on top of me. Finally we were told to open our eyes and meet our hermanitos mayores (older brothers/sister zebras), who helped us get into our zebra suits. My hermanito mayor Ezekiel and I linked arms and headed to our assigned street. We helped direct traffic, danced on the crosswalk, said hi to everyone , asked drivers to buckle up and hugged some cute kiddos who adore the cebritas. The experience was truly unique and very beautiful. On Friday, Alison’s last day we had a little fiesta as a way to say goodbye to her, thank Olga, and celebrate my birthday a little early. The party was complete with brownies, fruit, chips, cervezas and a little bit of salsa dancing.

Cutest cebritas around :)

Making some brownies

Olga, Clark, Alison, and I at our little family fiesta

Apparently Saturday was international dance day because I came across dancers in Plaza San Francisco on my walk to rent climbing shoes. Yep, climbing shoes! I went to Aranjuez yesterday, located in Zona Sur of La Paz, for a one on one rock climbing session with Jose through Andean Summits. It was all in Spanish per my request. He could also speak English but I try to take advantage of moments where I can practice speaking Spanish. I think I climbed five different routes, which increased in difficulty each time. I love that climbing is like a puzzle when you are up there trying to find a tiny hole or rock to grab or to place your foot. And it is definitely a full body work out! Jose was very friendly, patient with my Spanish, and a wonderful climbing instructor. Also on Sunday my new roommate, Elisa, arrived. She is a 3rd year med student from Wisconsin and will be rotating this week in Hospital del Niño. She is very sweet and a great Spanish speaker. I have enjoyed showing her around the city a bit.

It is crazy that I only have 2 more weeks in La Paz before I head to Tarija. I really love this city and I don’t think I’ll be ready to leave. Thank you for reading. Stay happy and healthy!

Unboliviable Uyuni!

This is a photo series (+captions!) of my 3 day tour of Salar de Uyuni this weekend. We booked the trip with Red Planet, which I highly recommend. Our guides were super knowledgable funny guys and great photographers too! We saw salt flats, lagoons, deserts, and volcanos, making friends with tourists from around the world along the way.

Alison and I arrived in the town of Uyuni in the early morning after our 10 hour overnight bus. While we waited for the the Red Planet office to open, we enjoyed some coffee and yogurt at Noni's Cafe. We also hung out with our new friend Ved, a doctor for Trinidad, and explored a bit of the town.

We loaded into cars and headed to our first stop, Cemeterio de Trenes (Train Cemetery). This was my most creative pose.

Here I am on top of a broken down train. The trains were transporting minerals to the ports on the coast. The British engineers however, did not anticipate the high altitude which affects the boiling point of water. As a result, there were many train accidents and technical difficulties.

Here is my travel group in front of an "ojo de salar" or an eye of the salt flat, formed by rivers that flow underneath the salt. In time it will close due to the crystallization of salt. Each two cars had one English speaking guide and formed a travel group. Our guide was named Obed, he drove the other car. Our driver was named Edwin and he only spoke Spanish. My group consisted of a Belgian family, a Canadian couple, the doctor from Trinidad, two Swedish engineering students, and a German woman.

Flags from all over the world that tourists put up. Ved brought the Trinidad flag and added it.

Alison brought along her finger puppets from the market to try to take perspective photos. I was clearly oblivious to the giant turtle that was about to eat me.

We stopped in a salt mining town, Colchani, where there are houses and furniture made of salt bricks cut from the salt flats. This was some of the salt that would be cleaned and packaged for cooking.

The salt flats were so serene, expansive, and beautiful. I had never seen anything like it.

The salt flats are infamous for the creative perspective photos that can be taken since the flat white salt stretches on for what seems like forever. I volunteered to be the one crushing my fellow tourists. Alison is the tiny human right under my boot.

Just two roommates holding hands, nothing more.

In the rainy season, the salt flats turn into the worlds biggest mirror. What was wonderful was that since we were in between seasons, we got to experience both the dry and wet salt flats. The water was pretty darn chilly but it made for some awesome photos. You can spot me in my warriors shirt and Alison in her purple shirt.

The sun was starting to set while we were on the wet salt flats.

Alison and I throwing up our llamas.

Some sunset yoga on the salt flats.

The first night we stayed at a little hotel where we were given dinner and breakfast. This was taken outside of the hotel in the early morning. I call it rocks and a skull. We saw a lot of desert on day 2.

Testing out my photography skills with this old basketball hoop.

We stopped at a quinoa field and I liked the little caterpillars on this quinoa plant.  There are white, red and black quinoa, black being the most nutritious. Quinoa takes so much nutrients from the soil that the land has to rest for 2 years in order to become fertile again. Sadly, the recent interest in quinoa in Europe and North America has increased prices of the superfood significantly. So much so, many Bolivians can no longer afford it.

The Ollague volcano

This plant, called Yareta, looks like it would be soft and mossy but it is actually similar to texture of coral. Very dense and rough. Found in the middle of a desert, it covers itself with a sap to keep water in and stay bright green.

I think this was taken during one of the flat tires. The guides told us we could walk around the canyon while they fixed it, which never took long at all. They are incredibly fast at changing tires. I thought this rock looked a lot like the silhouette of a bears head: the ear, eye, nose and mouth. Do you see it too?

Our first lagoon of the day with tiny flamingos that probably can't be seen in this photo. It is a nice one of Alison and I though.

The next lagoon with even more flamingos! Here I am on one foot, trying to look like a flamingo but it turned out to be the tree pose. I was excited that I had worn a light pink shirt to match the birds, which was unplanned. Most of the flamingos migrate from the Amazon, spend 6 months in the lagoons of Uyuni to eat and breed and then return to the tropical environment.

Our breathtaking lunch spot was a huge lagoon with very clear water. My favorite part of lunch was the baked plantains, and of course the view.

A little wild fox that had clearly been given food from people in the past. He wasn't afraid to be in close proximity of the many tourists that had just arrived.

An appropriate use of the tree pose featuring Alison and the Salvador Dalí Stone Tree, or Árbol de Piedra in Spanish. It is named this because it resembles his surrealist paintings. We also drove through a Dalí desert which has similar formations.

The classic stacked rock picture that is weirdly satisfying to look at. The Stone Tree is also in the background on the left.

Here I am in front of the Laguna Colorada, aka Red Lagoon. It contains red algae and many flamingos. All of the dots in the water on the left are flamingos. Many were babies. We could tell since they were still grey colored.

Apparently we were inside a volcano at this point. There were boiling mud pots and active geysers, we had to be careful where we stepped.

The steam stunk because it contained sulfur, which smells like rotten eggs.

The sun and the steam made for some cool photos. Here is a silhouette photo of my travel group.

A quick selfie before we left the volcanic mud pools. Our messy hair is evidence of how strong the wind was in volcanic crater. This was our last stop before our accommodation.

The view outside our accommodation for the second and final night. This was taken in the morning, but the night before we got to relax in these hot springs while sipping wine and looking at the stars. We even had volcanic mud masks! Without light pollution, we were able to see the milky way and our guides pointed out various constellations with their powerful laser.

I requested that we use my selfie stick to get a photo of our travel group. We took this in front of Laguna Verde, which was not actually green because of the season. When it is more windy, copper and arsenic get into the water and causes it to look much more green--- at least thats how I understood it, I could be a bit off.

We got a photo with our driver, Edwin. Like I mentioned above, he did not speak English. I enjoyed my time in the front seat talking with him a little and trying to understand what he was saying on the radio to the other drivers. They were always making jokes with each other, commenting on road conditions, or indicating vicuña sightings (a type of animal- look it up!). At one point Edwin let me use the radio to say "Un coche más" when a car was approaching. I had fun sprinkling in an occasional Spanish song since I was DJing the whole time we were in the car. Edwin told me I had good music :)

In addition to the wild vicuñas, we saw some domesticated llamas grazing. They had colorful ribbons on their ears left over from a recent festival.

One of our last stops was a collection of complex rock formations. This perfect circular window was formed naturally.

Do you just see a big rock? Look again! I decided to climb a little and Alison captured the moment in a photo.

That concludes my photo series of Uyuni. We took the night bus back and got home early in the morning on Monday. Thanks for reading!

My Selfie Stick Makes Its Debut

On Saturday we set out to hike La Muela Del Diablo (The Devil's Tooth). I have to say that if it wasn't for Alison's research on how to get there, I don't think we would have made it. Thanks amiga! We took the Teleferico to Zona del Sur of La Paz where we needed to hop on minibus 288. There are tons of vans here with different numbers and routes called minibuses. You can ride them for 2 or 3 bolivianos, the equivalent to 30 or 40 cents in the US. We were lucky and found the 288 quickly and took it up some bumpy roads to a town closer to La Muela del Diablo, where we would begin our hike. During the start of our walk we saw probably 10 or more dogs that at one point all started barking at once. Besides the rowdy dogs, the town was very quiet and peaceful. The views were incredible even before we saw the Devil's tooth. We kept looking back to look at how far we had come. We took a selfie with my selfie stick :) once we got to the entrance of Chiaraque, the small village located in front of the Muela del Diablo. From there we hiked further to the base of the Muela.  But on the path we were confronted by an angry aggressive dog. Alison had her rock just in case he tried to advance but luckily he let us pass. When we arrived at the base of the Muela, we took a quick snack and water break and enjoyed the view. I decided to climb up the Muela while Alison waited for me below. I made it back in one piece and we hiked back down and caught a minibus to our house. We were greeted by our newest roommate, Clark! He had come from a program in Tarija where I will be going after La Paz. Clark is a fourth year med student like Alison and he speaks Spanish better than both Alison and I combined. He has already been helping us with some grammar and vocabulary.

One of the barking dogs on our way up

A pretty green patch of grass and a nice view

Selfie with Zona Sur of La Paz

First use of my selfie stick at the entrance of Chiaraque.
Alison was reluctant to use it.

Chiaraque and La Muela del Diablo on the right,
plus a really cool looking rock formation on the left

Me and La Muela del Diablo

Alison has some great photography skills

Chiaraque from the opposite side

Just some grazing sheep

You guessed it... La Muela del Diablo

A well deserved snack break featuring Alison

Selfie stick part 2 when I climbed the Muela.
I was in between the two peaks of the rock formation.

Today, Sunday, we planned to go to Valle de la Luna and a soccer game. Sadly, we found out the soccer game was actually an away game so we couldn't go. But it was a beautiful day and we had great time exploring the Valley of the Moon. Valle de la Luna is located in the Zona Sur of La Paz and is an area with cool rock formations that were formed by the erosion of mountains from wind and rain. Visitors can walk through it on a winding path with stairs and bridges and view points. We took a minibus there and took our time walking through, taking way too many photos of rocks and cacti. Alison even suggested we use my selfie stick again. I think she is coming around. I also tried my first salteña today, a traditional Bolivian food similar to an empanada. Delicious!

Can you find me in this picture?

When Alison requested the selfie stick. Proud moment

The Andean Spirit

This guy's a rockstar

The Cactus Series

This one is for you Dad!