I arrived in Santa Cruz around noon on Thursday, welcomed with a nice 28ºC breeze. My flight to Cocha wasn’t scheduled to leave until 7:30pm that evening, so I decided to leave my bags at the airport and go into the city to explore for a few hours. Santa Cruz is more of an industrial city, but the center of town is filled with colonial architecture and traditional Bolivian elements (such as indigenous women roaming the streets wearing their conventional garb and pirated DVDs being sold on the streets alongside skewered papas and cow hearts). I explored the various mercados, tasted some of the local food, and enjoyed finally being able to wear a sundress.
It would be quite the understatement to say that Bolivia is a little less developed than Argentina; for one, the “bondis” are more like painted vans, a good decade older than I am, and whose ability to survive a crash test is doubtful at best. Traffic lights are more of a surgerencia than anything else, and you negotiate cab fares with the taxista, since none of the cabs have meters. It’s definitely a change of pace from life in Argentina (and especially life in the US), but I’m enjoying it!
I got to my
hostel in Cochabamba
very late on Thursday night, and after a very long day I was ecstatic to arrive
to a very new and clean private room, with a private bath, double bed, and television...for the same rate as a dorm in any Argentine hostel. I LOVE taking advantage of Bolivia’s underdeveloped economy. These past few days I have really enjoyed
exploring the city, while getting a serious bang for my buck. My wallet has never been so happy with me.
Cocha reminds me a lot of Mérida: colonial, indigenous, traditional, and tranquilo. I have made my way to the mercado de artesanía, La Cancha (a HUGE market where they sell everything from manzanilla to dog food), but most importantly, countless salteñerías. Salteñas are Bolivia’s empanadas, but are made out of corn meal instead of flour, so they are a lot sweeter than normal empanadas. Inside the salteña, the filling is a lot soupier, and includes hard boiled eggs, olives, and some peas along with the carne (or pollo!). They are significantly more filling than Argentine empanadas. Like Paloma once said to me, I literally could have salteñas for breakfast, lunch, and dinner and be completely satisfied. (Except I was recently told that eating salteñas for dinner isn’t something they “do” here...quite stupid and senseless if you ask me.)
Cocha reminds me a lot of Mérida: colonial, indigenous, traditional, and tranquilo. I have made my way to the mercado de artesanía, La Cancha (a HUGE market where they sell everything from manzanilla to dog food), but most importantly, countless salteñerías. Salteñas are Bolivia’s empanadas, but are made out of corn meal instead of flour, so they are a lot sweeter than normal empanadas. Inside the salteña, the filling is a lot soupier, and includes hard boiled eggs, olives, and some peas along with the carne (or pollo!). They are significantly more filling than Argentine empanadas. Like Paloma once said to me, I literally could have salteñas for breakfast, lunch, and dinner and be completely satisfied. (Except I was recently told that eating salteñas for dinner isn’t something they “do” here...quite stupid and senseless if you ask me.)
On Saturday I went up to El
Cristo de la Concordia. Think Cristo Redentor, but much, much
smaller. Still amazing, though. At first I was considering walking one way, but after seeing a
sign that read in English In order to avoid getting mugged, we recommend not to use the stairs,” I was quickly convinced to use the
teleférico. Getting to the top was absolutely breathtaking,
looking over the city of Cochabamba
and the entire valley. After spending quite a bit of time taking in the view, I
went back down and obviously made my way straight to a salteñería. After
stuffing my face with three salteñas (which you know, if you are familiar with salteñas, is a LOT), I was wandering
through Plaza Colon where I bumped into Ladi.
We decided to go to Cochabamba’s second annual Arabic
festival, something I definietly was not expecting to do in Bolivia! It
ended up being a lot of fun; lots of good food (delicious baklava!), Sangria,
and international dances, including a Hawaiian hula dance. Yesterday I went with Mariela to La Cancha, where we bought some fresh hojas de coca and sipped on some delicious tea in Plaza Colon. We ended up drinking the coca tea out of my maté, a wonderful fusion of two Latin American cultures. I am going to do my best to bring some coca back to Argentina, it is so delicious and really wakes me up!
Unfortunately I have wasted all of today figuring out my money situation. Bolivia is apparently on some list of restricted countries with both of my banks, thus both of my debit cards have been frozen. I literally have $70 bolivianos to my name. Tomorrow night I am supposed to be heading to La Paz, but unless I get one of my accounts unfrozen, it looks like I am stuck in Cocha!
Chau,
audgentina.
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