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Cochabamba Day 26 We were set to take an overnight bus from Uyuni via Osorno to Cochabamba, changing in Osorno at 4:30am. We watched the bus pull up outside the office and were instantly dismayed. It was our first bus trip in Bolivia and was already set to be a very different experience to that of the Argentinian buses. One of the large windows was shattered and held in place with cellotape.....we prayed that our seats were not next to that window. They weren´t, but they were opposite. One by one everyone got on and settled into their seats. However the seats next to the broken window were also completely broken, meaning the seat back flopped down onto the seat behind. At this stage all kinds of thoughts went racing through my mind as to how the broken seats and smashed window came about, none of which were healthy. Unfortunately as the driver attempted to fix the seats he managed to shatter the window even further, leaving a gaping hole.......30 minutes later the seats were fixed and were hanging on by a thread of wire and the window was fixed with cellotape! (Not gaffa tape or any other
durable, waterproof tape but plain old cellotape). The bus was simply a shell of its former self from its manufacture over 50 years ago and as we set off with the bus leaning precariously all over the road and down gaping big pot holes the size of the grand canyon we worked out our emergency escape routes. Seriously, we did.
Cochabamba - Day 27, 28 and 29 We arrived at around 8am in Cochabamba, exhausted, after a very disorganised and confusing change of bus in Osorno at 5 in the morning. The Cochabamba bus terminal was really crowded and a looming sense of danger fell upon me and what seemed like a million pairs of eyes followed us along the roads. We arrived at the Americana Hotel (as cheap as a hostel) and checked in, relieved that there were no 2pm check-in rules enforced and simply collapsed for the rest of the day.
The next morning we headed out to explore Cochabamba. The feeling of impending doom had a least dissipated and I was now able to relax after having a whole day of sleep. Cochabamba is crowded, smelly and full of the equivalent of local
fast food cusine places serving up pre-heated chicken and chips. That said, they tasted good. I´m pleased to report that here we found very few stray dogs unlike Chile and Argentina and those we did see were well fed.
We wandered around and found the usual sites, the Plaza, Cathedral and a Museum - housing some (around 4 pieces) of dinosaur remains and a large number of deformed skulls as was the practice 800 years ago to band and tie a childs skull to narrow and elongate it for decorative and cult purposes. Whilst strolling around the Plaza we heard what sounded like gunfire, having seen a policeman potter past us with no concerns we reassured each other that it couldn´t have been gunfire and kept on walking in order to investigate further.
As it turns out there was a large parade of people, old, young, traditional and modern letting off gigantic firecrakers. The parade was in order to protest about the forthcoming (not quite legal) vote (of which they won) taking place in Santa Cruz, a very rich province who want to govern themselves and keep their money within their province and not to hand a portion
out to the poorer less developed areas within Bolivia.
The vote was to take place while we were near Santa Cruz but Alan, our friendly English speaking Hotel Manager assured us that only transportation would be affected and any riots would be localised and not targeted against foreigners.
The next day we took a long walk across town and hopped into a cable car to visit the largest statue of Christ in the world overlooking the entire city. It was quite impressive but we were unable to walk up inside of him as a TV crew was setting up for some evening show. The cable car ride did not excite me at all and I was glad to be down safely on the ground and on my own two feet again. We did however bump into two of the English girls we had shared our 3 day Salar de Uyuni jeep trip with and sat down to rest, catch up and eat ice cream.
Villa Tunari - Day 30 - 34 The next morning we were due to set off to Villa Tunari for our animal sanctuary volunteer work experience at Inti Wara Yassi, Parque
Machia.
We arrived in Villa Tunari deep down from the altitudes we had been used to, to an altitude of a mere 300mts. Here we stayed at the park working in the jungle for a very short period. Unfortunately things were not quite what we had expected, so 4 days later we headed back to Cochabamba to continue our journey onto La Paz. Pedro (red and blue macaw), Martina (capuchin monkey) ....Thomas will never forget you. Neither will I forget Martina who attacked me more than once, argh!!
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