Oct 12-16 Dutch girl told me to take Salsa lessons/CHICHA/feeding homeless

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What have I been doing? well its been a long while since a long awaited blog entry for myself so here it goes. Recalling back to the 8th which was friday. OR lets go back to the 7th on thursday. Jose Luis my primo called me and wanted me to head down to where he lives and I was going to bring some cd's so I could mix some music. I had never even messed around with cddj's before and have to say that technology is really getting there. WEll I mixed around some and wasnt exactly ready to play any music friday and when I left Jose luis and his brother made it sound
like I wasnt going to play. Well friday came around and had school like normal and was actually planning on going to La Cancha with Ester. WEll right after my classes at like 12ish Jose Luis had called me a buch of times. I wondered what was up because he said his brother was setting up equipment at 12 and was playing till 6? For some reason I thought this was taking place during the night but I was very wrong. WEll when I talked to jose Luis he told me to be at the school in like 15min and he was going to call me and we were going. When he picked me up I didnt even
notify Ester that I was leaving and felt really bad that we werent going to be going to la Cancha. Also when they picked me up JOse luis asked me If i had music or the Cd's I made yesterday. I told him I had nothing but my laptop and we actually stopped somewhere to buy some cd's. I ended up djing before place Tequila got really packed in front of my host sister, jose luis and friends. Good times. Same day I believe that morning I went to a funeral before my class because my teacher Karla said she was going. It ended up I didnt know the teacher whos father passed away
or her father. Half hearted condolensce. After the day I djed I went to some spring concert with my buddy Jose Luis and after about 20min after getting there a woman approached us. She immediately asked if we spoke English. ha this is funny I thought and later theu became some new friends of ours. ONe was named Grietche and the other Hilde and they were from the netherlands. Its really cool when they speak dutch together considering it sounds like "kadfjlkfad". The day I met them we drank some chicha with a red flavor cant remember what its called. After the
spring concert we went to another concert where the Ajenjos were served and chilled on some beer with Ken and Caroline and her friend. UP to more recent times I kept in contact with the dutch women. side note--MY blood results came in and unsuprisenly I dont have AIDS sweet! thats good news. My visa should come in any day now. SO this weekend was really crazy not going to lie and classes alone have been going successful for me. forgot to mention after the spring concert we went to well i'll have caroline explain

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sunday-a day touring valle alto…which is basically just a group of pueblos (or towns) just
outside of the city of cochabamba. we jumped in the bus around 8:15 (p.s. a note to alice smith:
we had to pick up ken from his house because he couldn’t make it out of bed on time…some
things never change) and headed off to tarata-the first stop. in this charming town was a
franciscan church and friary that we visited. it was beautiful. something about really old
churches and buildings just enchants me. another thing that was appealing about the town was
the streets. they were so skinny! it reminded me a lot of sienna, italy-everything ends up
around the main square or the church, but all of the streets that lead to those places are like
alleyways.

our next stop was the town of criza, where there was a big outdoor fair going on in the city
center. we walked through the open air market stopping every once in awhile to admire the
unique food that was for sale, the spices piled up on the street or the homemade crafts. i
bought a few really cool looking knives to give to some boys back home. i am never sick of
walking around in the markets here…they are just SO full of life…so dominated by the colors,
smells and traditions of this captivating country.

we got back in the bus and drove to the town of arani next, where we ate a traditional lunch
for the valley at a patio restaurant. on the menu? soup! it was absolutely delicious….they sure
can cook here (like i keep saying, common misconception that the food in bolivia is not
good-i think it’s PHENOMENAL!) i had my first taste of chicha as well. i’m about to upload a
video of our bus driver (ivan-great guy) explaining how you drink it…so check out a description
of what the drink actually is underneath the video. we played gacho-the bolivian dice game-as
we waited for our food and just enjoyed being outdoors. i’ll never get sick of the drawn out
meals we have here…it just feels as though that’s how it’s supposed to be done.

the last place we visited was punata, another charismatic town. we hung around for a little
while in the main plaza-there was a flower/plant festival going on…so there were flowers
EVERYWHERE and people selling all kinds of fun looking plants. i bought a mini-sized cactus…it
just had to be done. it was too cute to pass up! flowers always make my heart happy…there’s
just something about their beauty that you just can’t find anywhere else in this life.
we stopped on the way home at this empanada place on the side of the highway to eat the best
empanadas (seriously) in cochabamba and get some delicious homemade ice cream.

--This day can no better be explained by me considering I arose so ...not well. I recall for lunch as well having more chicha...what a suprise but it wasnt the red kind so it was part of the bolivian experience.

Well the weekend came along and thursday I believe I went out? cant recall exactly. I think Jose Luis and I met up with the dutch women and drank some? Casa blanca comes to mind which is a little pub

Its really strange how my weekends just end up so unpredictable. WEll friday I played some Cacho with my family which is a similar game to Yahtzee in the US. Kevin was there and we went on a Cancha mission. WE ended up buying some drink "liquor de coca". This blew our minds with wonder. After WE made our way to kevins house to get some Coca collo. Coca Collo is like coca cola with coca? not really sure but on the bottle it is like an energy supplement most likely not found in u.s. We ended up eat some risky chicken at a chinese restaurant next to my house. We were actually planning on going to the pub tequila where i Djed last week/where jose luis works security but never made it there. WE drank till like 2am.. also note kevin bought bottle of ron abuelo which we finished. At 2am I called it a night and was convinced that I wasnt going to feed the homeless soup at saturday considering I had to be at the school to meet john and ester at 645am. WEll I actually made it somehow and felt really rewarded mentally for pouring soup for some homeless. I went home and slept and slept. I recall having weird dreams and woke up for the night. IT was saturday the nights are always extreme. Jose luis, Kevin,and I met up with the dutch girls at casa blanca like before and they showed me a flyer of David Guetta. WEll it was also this other girls Rachel last day in bolivia and Ken and Caroline wanted to meet up so after Jose Luis, Kevin and I ate at solo mios we went to mandarina which is a very fancy little place and drank some singanhi with a full table of friends. Also note Rachel and I got into some conversation about coachella last year. Cant believe she went for all 3 days. After we went to extremos and bought the dutch girls a ticket inside. Jose luis and I wondered why the others didnt come. It was only the 4 of us and after about 2 hours they left JOse luis and I with a bottle of Ron abuelo to finish. Time didnt matter anymore and searching for the bathroom I ran into this bolivian girl named Silvia that Ive been warned about. Well she texted me and we briefly discussed on facebook that we might meet up at extremos later that night and it was Shall i call a coincidence that I ran into her. Im not sure how long I danced for and after drinking a good amount Jose Luis told me we were leaving. Cool easy exit. Well I met up with this other guy "Heime". He lived in santa Cruz which was excellent and
understanding the concert coming up we agreed to have like 5 people crash at his house. WEll we went to Pablos place where he djes which is where I went thursday with the dutch women forgot. WEll I recall Grietche telling me to take salsa dancing lessons somewhere in the night which was odd because Silvia and I had no problem. WEll Returning to my house after drinking a bottle of fernet and going to jose luis's house with Heime and drank beers I wasnt well and felt like the brightness of the sun was death. Just metaphorically speaking. IT really hurt my eyes. I came home and Mirza asked me "vas a salir?" which in english is are you going to go? haha no I replied Voy a dormir! I told her and she laughed. I slept ate some showered and ate some more and slept more until jose luis called me sunday and told me we were going camping. I packed my bags well...I will have to include it in another blog...

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