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Published: October 13th 2010
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Hello everyone, in true tortoise fashion I stayed still for a bit so this is my entry about my time in Tarija, a beautiful city in the south of Bolivia, near to the Argentinian border and surrounded by vineyards. Also officially my favourite Bolivian city and made me finally love the country and its ways.
My old colleague and friend from the Soil Association, Jeni, managed to find us a place to WWOOF (world-wide opportunities on organic farms) in Tarija. So she came across from Paraguay, and I came across from Tupiza, and we met in the middle. Jeni had already been at the place for a week so was all settled in to our 'home' by the time I arrived at 5am.
A brief explanation of what we were actually doing is working for a guy called Mauricio and his company he had just started up called Saborati. His primary products were Limoncello (a fantastic liquour), spicy chili table sauces, smoked salt from the Salar, flavoured cheeses and houmous and various others depending on the season. He creates all the primary products in his home near the centre of Tarija. Whilst living there, he realised that he had
all this water and organic matter going to waste and decided to utilise it in the space he had to make some small herb and vegetable patches and a compost to sell those as bi-products. What Jeni and I did was make some order out of the dirt patch out front to turn it into vegetable and herb gardens, Jeni made the compost bin, and we would occassionally help make the primary products when needed.
We worked in the mornings and had the rest of the days free. It was a pretty easy deal by WWOOFing standards. For those that don't know about WWOOFing (and I'm still learning), it's basically an exchange, you work, give input, ideas, knowledge, they give you somewhere to stay, local knowledge and food. It was fairly basic living by most standards but we had hot showers and a toilet so I was happy. I quite like the rustic lifestyle! We also were on TarijeƱian tv that was doing a program about Mauricio and Saborati. Twice. Thankfully I missed the second issue where I apparently talk! I'm just sat weeding as the camera pans over me about 10 times in shakey/wobbly cam fashion. I'll try
and upload the first one somewhere when I'm back on a home internet connection.
Tarija itself is a beautiful city and I loved it, definitely my favourite. The people were lovely, kind, warm, and didn't make you feel like you had to persuade them to do business with you. They were happy to meet you, talk to you and help you. In the markets where we would often eat and shop, everyone sells the same thing, so the way they get you to come back to them alone, is they give you free things. We received free soup and veg, Jeni managed to get a bag full of vegetables when trying to just buy some potatoes. No-one seemed phased by a bright blonde and ginger wondering around their south american city. It was peaceful, calm, and pretty green.
Then just outside the city, you have countless vineyards and other towns and cities to visit. Tarija really has its tourism sussed, they just need the tourists! We visited some waterfalls, a sleepy vineyard town and a valley that not only reminded me of many English country walks, but there were also old rock carvings that looked exactly like the
nazca lines. I should have gone to see more, and Mauricio was full of ideas, but in my tortoise lifestyle ways I preferred to just relax after our 'hard' days work in the Sun! I did however go to the museum which houses some pretty amazing bones and fossils of animals I never knew existed. Again, photos to come soon. Including a giant bear/sabre-toothed/t-rex thing and a HUGE armadillo! Evolution is impressive.
After two weeks there, I decided it was time to come back, although there was so much that could be done at Saborati I would have loved to have stayed, and I definitely want to go back there, especially as I've left Jeni behind 😞 Many bus hours later, I made my way back to Arequipa in Peru with a stop-over in La Paz and I realised that Tarija had totally warmed me to Bolivian lifestyle and I felt so much more comfortable than I did before and I actually quite love Bolivia now and definitely would like to go back. Not only for the ridiculously cheap food and wine! And now I'm heading back to Lima tomorrow to meet up with my mum and either head on up to Huaraz for some more trekking or stay there and find work.
We'll see...
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