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Published: December 15th 2009
Walking on La Paz
The view from one of the many lookouts around La Paz. Hola amigos!
In true South American style it has taken much longer than it should have to get this blog up and running, but here ´tis! We have now been in the amazing city of La Paz for 2 weeks and in a few words, everything is great! We feel very lucky how everything has fallen into place and we have really settled in to la vida boliviana.
So, from the beginning. The flights were all on time, fun and fairly uneventful, bar the fact that I left my laptop on the flight between Tahiti and LA, which I am still in the process of tracking down. While in transit in Peru we managed to get in touch with a family that we could potentially live with in Bolivia and were relieved when they said they were happy for us to stay with them for 2 months, and move into their house in less than 24 hours! Stoked!
Flying into Bolivia was an awesome experience, as we flew over the world´s highest lake, Lake Titicaca, and also landed at one of the world´s highest airports at around 4100 m. Being the good lil kiwis that we are, we both declared our
Some family
Host Dad, Host Mum, Host Sis (Maria) and Kath at the Valley de la Luna (Moon Valley). food items but were suprised when we basically walked off the plane, grabbed our bags and jumped into a van without anyone taking a second look at us or our what might be lurking in our luggage.
About 20 mins out from the airport we got our first look at La Paz, as we started our descent. It was an amazing sight. The city of La Paz, with around 1 million inhabitants (sketchy census figures), is basically situated in large bowl type valley which is surrounded by mountains with DIY brick homes sprawling up the sides. The largest mountain, Illimani, is often shrouded by cloud but on a clear day it towers over the city. It´s a beautiful place.
We soon arrived at our new home and were greated by a beaming Bolivian family. The family consists of 2 parents, both around 60, and their 4 adult children all between the ages of 30 and 40. The house is a fairly large box type brick house, in a middle class neighbourhood called Alto Obrajes, around 15 mins out from the city centre. We also met Logan, the massive rottweiler guard dog. Although now Logan has ´got to know us´,
Our Casa
It´s big, it´s brick, and it´s our home for the next couple of months. Top left is Kath´s window. I´m on the 2nd floor, other side. for the first couple of weeks he had to be held back everytime we entered or left the house so that he would not eat us alive. Well, that´s how I saw things panning out anyway if he ever did break free from the clutches of one of our Bolivian protectors.
We spent the first few days exploring the city and hanging out with our new family, and by the end of the week we had managed to sort out a visit to the orphanage we wanted to work at. Again, everything came together and by the end of Friday we had pretty much full-time work at a house for street boys in El Alto, about 1 hr from our house. There are about 10 boys who live at the house, aged between 7-14, and it´s fairly disorganised so it´s basically up to us to what we want to make of our time with the kids. There are four of us volunteers working there, which sounds like a lot but trust me when I say we really have our hands full! We have started teaching English each day which is fun and the rest of the time we mainly just
Roof top vista
The view from our roof looking to the south towards the mountain Illimani. hang out and play games, help the staff at the house and try and stop the boys from killing each other!
Ok well hopefully this has filled in a few of the blanks. Next blog entry: Mountain climbing in the Andes. Hasta Luego!
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courtz
non-member comment
RAD!!
Hey man, good to hear you're still alive! wish we could've spent more time in la paz as it was awesome, we stayed near the witch market and ate heaps of fruit smoothies! was excellent (Apart from the fact that i couldn't keep food down for long- i'll spare you the details!!) Can we see some photos of the kids? and the orphanage?? that'd be awesome!! hope your stay continues to be awesome!!! all the best xoxo