Perpetual Motion

(A little bit of a Get Out the Map makeover- I hope you all like it!)

This past weekend, we ventured to Santa Cruz, Bolivia, a 10 hour bus ride East of Cochabamba, close to the borders of Brazil and Paraguay. We were warned by friends in Cochabamba that Santa Cruz was going to be very warm, but neither of us were expecting an entirely different climate. As we rubbed our tired eyes as we stepped off our overnight bus at 8 AM into the humidity of Santa Cruz, we grabbed our book in search of the nearest coffee shop.  We spent our mornings, that were cloudy and moderate, in the palm tree lined main plaza, Plaza 24 de Septiembre, but by noon, the sun was out in full force; Dave commented that it felt like he was in another country, Brazil or Columbia, without the beaches. We wandered through our new enviornment, stumbling upon bustling markets with meat, soccer jerseys, cookware, etc., Japanese and Cuban restaurants, artesan markets, huge screens projecting the current World Cup game in the plazas, and modern art museums. 


For our overnight bus travels, we decided to get the nicest bus, similar to first class, paying more for nicer seats. These nicer seats were actually beds that had nice spacious leg rests and the seats reclined almost all of the way back. These flotas (long distance buses) are two levels and have TVs, and are generally very nice buses, as long as you can fall asleep, and they are apparently common when traveling long distances in Latin America. 


At the end of our Santa Cruz vacation, we decided to check out one last spot, Las Lomas de Arena, mysterious sand dunes outside of the city. With our bus scheduled to leave Santa Cruz at 8 PM, we thought that around 4 PM we could still squeeze in this excursion, and we're so glad that we did! We were lucky enough to find a great taxi driver, Alfredo, who taught us about Bolivia's natural resources, economic problems and geography. The dunes were beautiful, and there were several of them, with a few small lakes scattered amongst them. Dave wrote a great blog post about it, http://curiousgringo.blogspot.com/2010/06/sky-holds-sun.html

In more local news, I started my Spanish classes this week and am really enjoying them. My teacher, Lucia, is a very kind retired English teacher from the Cochabamba language school, MaryKnoll. My lessons are in her apartment, which in conveniently located only a few blocks away from our apartment.  She is a great teacher and I feel very comfortable with her, it is nice to be back in class; as Dave says, "every day in Cochabamba is a Spanish class." Lucia told me that tomorrow is el día de San Juan Bautista, and apparently the festivities start tonight, so we will see what it brings.


Yesterday morning as I was getting ready for class, I heard a  flock of birds that sounded similar to seagulls (not a native to this landlocked country), so I went to the window and above the lemon tree behind the apartment was a flight of bright green parrots! They were so beautiful and loud, they looked just like the ones that mom and I saw while bird watching in Mindo, Ecuador. In such a busy city, there doesn't seem to be much room for wild animals, except for stray dogs and pigeons, so I'm guessing that these poor parrots had strayed off course and wound up in our backyard, but I still hope that they come back. 


GO TEAM USA!