These are a few of my favorite things...

Location: Sucre, Bolivia

I´d like to take a few minutes and reflect on my time here thus far. I´d like to share with you some of the idiocyncrasies about South America that I love so much, some of the things I have learned, and some of the situations I have not been so fond of. Here goes...

Things I love:

1. Augustina.

Her story: I was lucky enough to meet Augustina two nights ago after trekking in the mountains outside of Sucre. I decided with two friends, Leila, and my new friend Fabian, to take some time out of the city and explore the beautiful countryside, so we headed out on Wednesday and stayed through Friday, hoping we´d find somewhere to sleep although there were no definite hostals where we were going. Though we tried to get on a bus, none were available to go to the tiny town of Chantiquilla, where we were to begin hiking...

2. Crazy trucks full of fascinating people

...so we decided to board the truck. This truck had no seats, and people would seat wherever they could make room, despite sitting on top of people´s feet or pushing others out of the way. Although it looks like we have plenty of room, my friend and I are smushed, each with a tiny Quechua woman sitting on our feet. I had so much fun looking down and watching their small sandled feet move about between the colorful bags of rice of corn, trying to adjust a bit. It is amazing how comfortable the people seemed to be- just sitting on top of each other and squeezing in. There were little boys fast asleep and tiny 4 year old girls in pink sweaters just holding on to the rails. No one swatted away flies, changed layers of clothes to adjust to the heat or complained...they just stayed they way they were and looked completely satisfied. I find that I make tiny adjustments every few seconds- sunglasses on, off, take off sweatshirt, take a drink, open window, blow nose, etc...but I have never noticed this with the Peruvian and Bolivian people. They seem very adaptable and don´t seem to complain or need to alter their state of being based on what is going on around them. It´s amazing. So Lesson Number One to Ali: ADAPT. Be FLEXIBLE. I regress...the story continues...

3. Tiny Old Traditional dressed woman who come out of the blue in the mountains chasing their goats

...Anyway, so we spent about 1 1-2 hours on this bouncey truck, which finally arrived at our location. We deboarded and began our seven hour hike, hoping to have no problems following the trail. On the way, we climbed up a mountain and ran into these wild looking black dogs who were herding the sheep on their own. After a few more minutes, we ran into this woman, who didn´t speak a word of Spanish, but ran like the wind to chase after her goats. I offered her some Oreos for her hardwork, which she took, thanked me, and proceeded to take herself and her goats over the mountain...

4. Baby goats :)

5. Lazy boy rocks

6. Crazy 20000 year old paintings in the middle of Bolivian wilderness

...as we continued to walk, the landscape changed, and we went from seeing multicolored mountainsides to jagged rocks that looked like lazy boy chairs. We finally scouted out some old ancient paintings on a rock shelf that had supposedly been there for 20,000 years. They were cool.

7. Augustina´s home

...as we walked and it got later, we realized that we might not make it to our destination, which was a place called Maragua, a tiny town inside of a crater. After 7 hours, the sky started to thunder and we knew we were headed for a big storm. I had heard that there was a woman in town who let people crash somewhere on her property, so as the skies started to open up, we searched for this elusive Augustina. We found her and she soon led us to a small building behind her home and gave us straw mattresses to sleep on. We chatted with Augustina about all her pets- ducks, dogs, pigs, rabbits, guinea pigs, etc...and then fell asleep in the little room, listening to the rain.

The next day we got up and walked 3 more hours into the crater, where I went into the school. This is Avelina, and she and I chatted about school and traded string bracelets. Sadly, many of the kids there approached us and demanded money as soon as we got to the school. Although the town rarely has visitors, the kids know to ask foreigners for money, and they quite rudely demanded that this was all they wanted from us.

The school in Maragua, Bolivia.

We headed back to Chaunaco, where Augustina lived, and got there in another 3 hours. The air was so dry that you were thirsty the whole time. (Ethan and Toby, remember when we used to stick our heads out the window when we were little to dry out our tongues??? Well, this was just like that except it happened in about 3 minutes...) Finally, after about 25 miles in 2 days, we got to town and caught a ride in a truck bed back to Sucre. It was a great trip. And that´s how I met Augustina.

Also, Happy Birthday to Mom (Oct 25th) and Johnny (oct 28th). Much love!