Blogs from Cochabamba Department, Bolivia, South America - page 30

It appears that I have arrived in the midst of a mosquito epidemic, far beyond those of normal years. They drive you nearly insane on a daily basis - the whining noise, the abundant itchy bites, the disfiguration of your entire body, the threat of malaria .... need I go on? I´ll never complain about being bitten by bugs in Australia ever again, there´s nothing that compares to this! The most fun part (not) is that we can´t wear insect repellent around the animals in case they lick us and make themselves sick. I kind of pooh-poohed this at first until I saw how my puma Gato responds to things with strong smells. He rubs his face all over the area and drools profusely, and there´s very few things in this world more disgusting than being ... read more

After Sucre the girls and I headed to Cochabamba. We had a spectacular light show on the bus trip, as we watched lightning constantly striking the distant hills. Cochabamba wasn't the nicest place I've been to in Bolivia but it gave us a chance to work out Visas and search, rather exhaustively, for places to eat (it's a pretty sad day when the finest dining experience you can have is in a restaurant called 'Dumbo', that has a giant elephant attached to the roof). From Cocahabamba to the most amazing experience so far; 3 weeks spent doing volunteer work at an animal refuge in Villa Tunari. ''Inti Wara Yassi' ' houses Capuchin, Spider, Squirrel and Howler monkeys, many pumas, ocelots, birds and tortoises, all of which were rescued from lives in captivity, often where they were ... read more

Well the town must´ve known I was coming as there was a huge festival here for my arrival. There was lots of street dancing, drinking, happiness and mercados. What more could I ask for? Well after a while of revelling, I realised it was not for my benefit, but a rather religious affair! It was the Festival of the Virgen de Urkupiña. Basically a huge excuse for the aforementioned street dancing and bands. Groups of dancers and bands from all over Bolivia converged on the small town of Quillacolla, about 12Km from Cochabamba to join in the festivities. They all wore mental costumes, very colourful and some very weird! Most groups danced through the tiny streets for a whole nine hours. This lasted for about 3 whole days. Well the Bolivians have certainly given me a ... read more

Well getting here was the first big adventure! we were very organised and bought our bus tickets in the morning to leave that night, full cama so we were looking foward to a good nights sleep. All was well we got to the bus station in plenty of time and our bus ticket man told us he was changing our bus but it was still cama so we agreed and made our way to the bus. hum. not quite what we had expected! no toilet for one! and the chairs were worse than the number 1 bus, okay not that bad but hardly cama, hardly semi cama! So as cross as we were we got off of the bus to have our first argument in spanish! Dom used every single spanish he knew, and plenty of ... read more

Hello everyone, first off some people might be wondering where are the photos? But, I do not have a camera with me on this trip, blasphemy I know, but if you want to see any pictures of our adventures check out the travel blog of Steven Grin (it’s on this same website). We arrived in the field on Tuesday, July 26. Ramon and Maggie arrived into Cochabamba, we all met with out two Bolivian team members: Julio and Bernardo and were off on Tuesday. We are staying at some cabins in Villa Tunari while working here in the Tropics of Cochabamba (also known as the Chapare). There are four departamentos (like a county) Villa Tunari, Shinahota, Chimoré, and Entre Ríos; we are working in all four departamentos- some villages are 30 minutes from our cabins and ... read more