The Road Less Traveled- Cochabamba, Bolivia

Miss Chicken at the Christo statue in Cochabamba

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Greg, Miss Chicken and I took a shorter-than-planned road trip to Cochabamba over Christmas Break. Our original plan had us driving to Cochabamba, then traveling on to Sucre (about eleven hours) for New Year's Eve then onward to Potosi which is the massive silver mine that the Spanish extracted years of treasure from (with the help of slaves from African followed by indigenous Indians when the slaves died-out) and is still being mined in a minor fashion today. We were then to drive to a little town called Tupiza where Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid holed up for a while before their final show-down with the authorities in Bolivia. Apparently, there was some good pickins in South America if you were a down-and-out gringo gun slinger.

The El Alto Plano

We left about five days after returning from our Cuzco, Peru trip. We called a friend to ask for directions. Even though we had a map and GPS one cannot be too careful when driving in developing countries; we learned this driving to the South Gobi in Mongolia. His advice to us; drive as fast as you can and pass every single car you come across because you don't want to get stuck in the pass at night. I've noticed that in every country I've driven in outside of the US, that while there are rules and regulations when driving, the typical person does not adhere to the rules of the road. It's an exhausting and harrowing endeavor, yet I still love road trips. I love the monotony of mile after mile of driving what is typically a single track; I love listening to music and commenting on oddities (to our foreign eyes) as we pass through small villages. I love talking about everything and nothing; and mostly, I like having a shared experience that Greg and I will reference in casual conversation for years to come. "Remember that time we drove to out to Ayinchin during the snow storm and it was my first time driving a four-wheel drive in the snow? I was so scared (and scared you enough) that you had to finish the drive?" 

Well, Greg followed 'the fast and the furious' mantra and then some, as you can see by the following video. 

The dangers of driving in Bolivia

http://youtu.be/ftfaiH1sFVY

 I always tell him that it's not his driving that scares me, but the other guy.

Notice the on-coming truck...Greg said the bus passed within inches of slamming head-on into the other guy. I think I'm glad I don't get to see the road from the perspective from the driver's seat.

I was still feeling quite ill after contracting some sort of food-borne nasty in Peru. This made traveling over the pass (about 14,700') very difficult for me. Normally, I'm just fine and don't feel too badly; when we went over the pass at a bit over 15,000' going to Coroico a few months back I was fine, but this time it hit me hard. Headache, stomach ache, light headed and tingling limbs. Luckily for me, Greg (who always plans for every possible contingency) had brought a tank of oxygen just in case. So, he pulled over and put the mask on me so I didn't, ahem, pass out. Once I had sucked on some concentrated goodness for about ten minutes, I felt coherent enough to make fun of myself.

Just Breathe....

Oxygen

http://youtu.be/kQRazt-gOfU

Little church on top of the world

Unfortunately, the day we were to leave Cochabamba for Sucre, we awoke to a torrential downpour; summer is the wet season in Bolivia. Even in the best of conditions, the trip would have been eleven hours over a two lane, at best, dirt track through the mountains. We attempted to book a flight to Sucre or Tarija on the Bolivia-Argentina border but to no avail. We even considered staying the night to see if the rain let-up, but the hotel staff kindly (and strongly) recommended we didn't stay as it was New Year's Eve and they were planning a party that would last into the not-so-early hours of the following morning. Since our room was positioned on the main courtyard and it was already fairly noisy with evening weddings and workers (they had erected an enormous circus-tent like tarpuline to keep the rain out), we decided it was time to head home.

The weather is rather unpredictable

An interesting phenomena on the road to and from Cochabamba are dogs and children; both sit next to the road begging for food and money. The dogs are like sentinels; they invariably are sitting or lying right on the yellow line, patiently waiting for a tender morsel to be flung from the passing cars. The children are not so docile; they sometimes yell and run after the cars with out-stretched hands or hats, waiting for a few centavos or a crust of bread to be flung. Every so often we would have to stop at a "Peajes"; this is where we were asked our destination and charged a toll. This was also a popular place for the local children, women and old people to hang-out hoping for food or money. The women were selling homemade food (we skipped it) and snack items.

Children begging for food and centavos from passing cars

There are also small crosses littering the landscape, reminders of road trips that had tragic endings, as Greg points out in the following video:

Crosses and Dogs

http://youtu.be/70m1f4Gc0iM

Regardless, we had a great time in Cochabamba. The elevation is about 4,000' lower than our house in La Paz, so we slept great. Additionally, Cochabamba is know for their culinary delights and we wasted nary a meal trying out a local favorite; an extremely thinly pounded beefsteak that is breaded then fried, and served over sliced fried potatoes and steamed white rice. The meal is served with a typical Bolivian spicy tomato-pepper salsa. We enjoyed copious fresh fruits and I discovered 'jugo maracuya' which is a fresh-squeezed passionfruit juice; simply divine. We also went to La Estancia Restaurante; it was highly recommended by friends and our guide book... and really, who could turn-down Argentinian beef? We started with a glass of Chilean wine each, all-you-can-eat salad bar, bread, and shared an order of thick-cut french fries with our meal; Greg had ribs and I had a massive steak. All this with a couple of waters came to about $30. The restaurant itself was extremely busy with locals, Bolivians visiting from La Paz, and tourists. There's an enormous open barbeque that all the various cuts of meat were cooked on; the smell was a true carnivores delight. The sauces on the table are a Bolivian salsa (to the left) and Chimichurri (on the right) which was my favorite.

Argentinian Beef; it's "what's for dinner tonight..."

We had time to meet up with Greg's personal assistant, Chichi and her daughter Carolina who also teaches at ACS to show us around Cochabamba a bit. The highlight of our time spent together was driving up to view the enormous Christo statue which is apparently larger than the Christo in Rio de Janiero although the hill it is housed upon is not as high.

The Christo statue in Cochabamba

In sum, we had a great trip together even though it was cut short. Our current plan is to drive with Sharon and possible Nova to Uyuni, the massive salt flats about a two-day drive from La Paz, over spring break.