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Published: December 13th 2006
El Christo de la Concordia
One of the biggest statutes of Jesus in South America (or maybe the world?)This weekend we decided to go and see another city in Bolivia. Cochabamba is about 400kms away from La Paz... which you would think would take about 4-5 hours... but it took us 12! Here is why this trip turned slightly nightmare-ish...
1. It was raining cats and dogs. We had a great lightning display and at over 4000m most of the way, feared we would get fried (although on further thought we were perfectly safe... Physics 101... The reason you are safe in a car is because the lightning will travel around the surface of the vehicle and then go to ground. Michael Faraday, a British physicist, discovered that a metal cage would shield objects within the cage when a high potential discharge hit the cage. The metal, being a good conductor, would direct the current around the objects and discharge it safely to the ground." )
2. About half way (while we driving through the mountains) the headlights shorted and the fuse blew (because of all the rain and lightning). The next 5 hours were spent in almost complete darkness closely tailing anything that was driving at the right speed - thank God for those red lights.
El Christo on the hill
We've heard that the devoted climb up to El Christo on their knees. On walking down we realised that there were many, many stairs... hard enough to walk down with two feet. 3. The snow. We got up to about 4500m for a time and were driving through snow and sleet. Not pleasant when you have no lights and...
4. The heater in the car also failed to function leaving Julie curled up in a blanket trying to sleep. (by this time it is well after midnight)
5. The lack of gas stations... with the gas tank below 'E', we ended up finding our saviour, in a small town, at about 1am - one little man who had closed shop had some gas. He poured it from his plastic bottles into our tank while some other travellers valliantly attempted to fix our head lights... they failed.
6. Our limited spanish and the fact that this was a first attempt at a long distance trip in our car with a map of Bolivia's roads all squashed onto one page.
7. The flat tyre.
At 4am we pulled into the cursed destination vowing to invest in some additional spotlights. We drive around for a while and, suprise, suprise, no hostals are open at 4 in the morning!... except the ones in the part of town that no 'gringo'
should ever be seen at night. We pull into the tacky, seedy hotel and get a room trying not to think too much about previous guests. Its almost dawn and I can't sleep cause I'm worried I won't have a car when I wake up.
Cochabamba was cool apart from that, it was a great temperature - warm, not hot, great food and great company. Our favourite Bolivian (Dani) was there with an outreach band from the US (The Carpenters Tools). We visited the main attraction in Cochabamba - the very large statute of Jesus (apparently one of the biggest). The drive back was nice and smooth and we arrived home within 6 1/2 hours.
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Danielle
non-member comment
I love you both!!!
As I said in my title I LOVE YOU GUYS and I was so happy you made it to Cochabamba safe and well. I love you adventurous Spirit, your humor and the tenderness of your Hearts. God blessed me when he brought you to my life and I am so excited to spend Jesus's b-day together (we know is not his b-day I am just kidding!). The Llama sign is so cool I just wonder if the Campesinos respect the sign! PS: Sorry for my grammar!