My new bed partner is...

a Dengue mosquito! Well I'm not sure if it has Dengue or not and I don't want to find out.  For the last 10 nights (all the nights I've been living here) one single mosquito visits me every night. But somehow stays hidden and silent throughout the day to evade capture. It's bound to get me soon, maybe tonight will be my lucky night.

Spent an amazing day at Ginger's Paradise approx. 1.5 hours away from Samaipata. It is an organic farm and inspiration hostel. It has amazing vegetarian food, the best pesto I have ever had. The owners are also really cool people living sustainably off their land and helping to teach others how to do the same. Over 70% of all things they eat are produced on their property. Check out their website at http://www.gingersparadise.com/

Growing Pains

Show me that smile again.

Don’t waste another minute on your cryin’.
We're nowhere near the end 

The best is ready to begin.

The Growing Pains' theme song pretty much summarizes what I felt like since the last time I posted. My first weekend in Samaipata was a weird one. There was a car rally in town which does not really fit in with the nature based, relaxing experience that Samaipata normally offers. The town was packed with rich Bolivians indulging in food, drink, and loud, fast cars. Most of the local places were closed so they could enjoy this craziness so the only restaurants open were the expensive tourist ones. I am quickly losing all sense of what is expensive. When I compare the prices to home it is super cheap but here they are quite expensive. Since I will be living on a "typical" Bolivian salary (which I'm not sure is correct) I have to live like a local and think that things are expensive even though it's peanuts in Canadian dollars. After a weekend of feeling ripped off and taken advantage of one of my great co-workers took me around and showed me where the locals eat and what I should be spending on food. I struggle with feeling guilty for the amount of money I spent on the weekend for food alone as it is much more than my co-workers could ever spend or even have at their disposal. That being said I couldn't help but to buy one thing that I couldn't go without - a coffee maker.  The coffee here is amazing however the locals drink Nescafé! Yes, they drink instant coffee when they have amazing tasting local coffee, but it is more expensive. So I let myself indulge in the deliciousness and decide I don't have to live like a local in all ways.

Hola from Santa Cruz!

OK! So I arrived in Santa Cruz on June 19th in a torrential rain storm.  Talk about diversity, I went from dry, super sunny, cooler La Paz to wet, super muggy, overcast, warm Santa Cruz in one hour. From cacti to palm trees. It was torrentially (I made up an English word, why not since I make up Spanish words all the time) raining all day and night but it was no biggy.  June 21st was a National Holiday in Bolivia for the Andean New Year or Aymara New Year or Winter Solstice. I heard there was a ceremony in Samaipata at El Fuerte which is a UNESCO World Heritage Site http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/883 . So obviously I had to go.  So I packed and left the hotel to catch a trufi (shared van) to Samaipata a 2.5-3 hour journey.

Safe & Sound

Hi everybody!  I arrived safe and sound in La Paz Bolivia yesterday morning. I almost didn't make my connection in Miami to La Paz  due to the terminal being closed because of a lightning storm.  It was an amazingly beautiful descent or should I say ascent to the airport as I watched the sun rise over the snow capped jagged mountains that surrounded us.  El Alto airport is located 4,100 m (more than 13,000 feet) above sea level.  The beautiful mountains are called the Cordillera Real de los Andes (the mountains that surround La Paz).  From the airport our taxi wound us down, and down, and down, into the city or canyon of La Paz with an elevation of roughly 3,650 m (11,975 ft).