Adventuras de Alicia y Andres: Bolivia, the land of superlatives

Friday, July 28, 2006

Bolivia, the land of superlatives

It’s been a long time since our last blog out to you all but we have been busy surviving giardia, salmonella poisoning, kidney infections, you name it and we have probably had it!

We are now living in beautiful, slightly random Bolivia, which is without a doubt a country full of superlatives. Home to the world's most dangerous road, the world's largest salt desert, the world's largest navigable lake, the world's highest ski lift (5000m), this country is among the top 5 recipients of foreign and worldwide AID yet it is the poorest out of all of the South American countries, it also has the largest Indigenous population in all of S America.

What else? Bolivia has had more than 100 revolutions in the last century and countless presidents. We are now living in La Paz, which happens to be the world’s highest capital city. It’s taken us the past two months to be able to walk without getting out of breath, and finally we have braved exercise classes in the morning. Nothing is more priceless than seeing Coff doing aerobics in a room full of middle aged women and me, I don’t think they know quite how to take him, the average height here is 5 foot so he tends to stand out a little in class.

So what have we been doing for the last 2 months??? After nearly 4 months lugging round our back pack, doing it very tough as you can see from our past blogs we felt it was time to settle down and live in Bolivia for a while. Why Bolivia??? The first paragraph should be able to answer that question, this country is truly incredible, it changes so quickly with every corner you take, one minute you are in grand colonial plaza with tonnes of shoe shine boys desperate to shine your thongs, the next you are in a massive outdoor market that covers most of the city with loads of Indigenous people, colours, music, smells, etc. and the next you are in the CBD, cinemas, theatres, business suits, then a 10 minute bus ride and you are in what feels like the desert, or you hop on a plane for 40 minutes and you are in the Amazon! We actually just went to the amazon for a weekend trip which was unbelievable, anacondas, birds, alligators, pink dolphins, turtles etc. Every day there is some sort of strike for something (taxes – no one feels they should pay them, family health, vendors going on strike when they arent allowed to sell beer in the streets etc) or randomly there will be a gay march, or all the streets will close for ‘traditional dancing day’, needless to say it’s pretty hard to get bored here in Bolivia.

Bolivians are unbelievably friendly, we still get people coming up to us and saying “Welcome to my country!” We have both found work in different areas which is proving to be fantastic, plus we are taking guitar and traditional dance classes – cant wait to serenade you all when we get back to OZ! In the meantime enjoy the photos and keep up the emails!

Loads of love, coff and alice xox