We made it to Bolivia´s largest city and we´re quite enjoying it. We found the hotel we´d booked is right in the middle of the witches´market, so for Christmas, everyone is getting dried llama fetuses.
It´s a nice walkable city, but hilly, so we´re taking it slow. It´s also in a setting almost as spectacular as Rio: subtract the ocean and add more mountains, BIG mountains.
Yesterday we walked to the nearby square and toure the Iglesia San Francisco, which was reall gorgeous. The church itself is huge and gothic and there are cloisters attached filled with beautiful religious art done by natives, thereby lending some interesting twists to the imagery.
They also let you walk right out on the centre of the roof of the church, but only half way.
We were thrilled last night to find an Indian restaurant right in our neighbourhood. We´ve been getting pretty tired of huge hunks of meat with piles of starch for all our meals. It was spicy and delicious. Afterwards we went into a little folk music club around the corner, which seems to be more geared for the tour bus crowd than our guide book suggested. But it was fun nonetheless. I hadn´t even had the chance to order a drink before I was pulled up to dance with a Bolivian lass. I think I managed not to embarrass myself--Rhia may beg to differ--although it´s tough to be spun by a five-foot girl.
Today we set off early to the Valle de la Luna just outside the city. We managed to find the appropriate bus(this city, like some others we´ve visitied, lacks a public transit system...there are just a bunch of guys who drive vans, and if you want to go to one of the places listed in the window, you flag them down). Rhia had a nice chat with an Andean lady on the way out, she was pleased to see a bunch of pictures we´d brought from home, especially those of me in a skirt. They were having such a good chat we missed the spot to get off. But we got back and had an interesting walk through this lunar landscape.
More exotic food for lunch: Burger King. Sometimes you just want something fast and familiar. We´re off to do a bit more wandering now.
Rhia has added a few more pictures to Flickr. Check em out.
--John
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5 comments:
I DO NOT SEE A BEARD
WHAT IS UP
This sounds like a great day too. I belive the church you visited is the one that I think I had mentioned to you before you left as having some really fascinating indigenous religious art/iconography. Can't wait for my llama fetus...'twill be the talk of the town here !! Enjoy.
Winnipeg Dad
I would like a llama fetus.. if you can get that past customs.
We'll take just one llama fetus. Although, I suppose that two would make for nice bookends.
I love that as soon as you hit the developing world, public transportation turns into the universal decrepit mini-bus. Where do they get these mini-buses? How is that every developing nation has them? In Ghana, they were tro-tros. There was the driver and his mate. The mate hangs out the side of the tro-tro and yells "KumasiKumasiKumasi" or wherever it is they're going, and he's also in charge of taking the money - which usually works out to less than pennies. There are tro-tros that go around the city and there are tro-tros that will take you half way across the country and beyond.
Anyway, I'm baffled by them. I really don't understand how you'll find the same system running in Ghana as you do in Bolivia, etcetera, but nothing comparable in Canada.
(Personally, I always found them to be a little shifty in terms of safety and preferred to take the only slightly less shifty looking cabs).
I've fallen behind in my reading :(
But I did make Indian food for the first time ever on the 12th - and it turned out pretty good!
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