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School Parade in Oruru
All day and all night both days were were in Oruru every school in the town was having their pride parade. It was loud and relentless. Think fireworks and questionably tuned instrumentsHello everyone!
This ones coming at you from Oruru, Bolivia. La Paz locals who heard we were traveling there usually wrinkled their noses and said something to the effect of "ohhh... its dirty little mining town!" Well, it isn´t that dirty, but its not much to look at either. It is also very cold! We can see our breath in our unheated hostel room. Besides cold, I can declare Oruru to be an oddly interesting place. We met this man in a coffee shop one morning (turns out he was a professor of Anthropology at Oruru University) we had a long conversation about Oruru. According to him, whatever this area lacks in physical natural beauty it makes up for in its sense of Mystery. It seems the people are a superstitious bunch, praying to Pachamama (or mother earth) for health, cars, money, family, etc.. Every new year they burn sugar tablets with symbols of each desired blessing- if the ashes are all white, Pachamama is happy with you and will grant the blessings. If there is any black in the ashes though, bad news.
We came here for 2 reasons: To eat at this one restaurant we read about
Marshmellitos
I found these homemade coconut flavored marshmallows- A baggie for about 30 US cents. Funny because they have the same ones at Whole Foods for 7 bucks and I love them but I never buy them because its extorsion. that serves 5 star Bolivian food (Nayjama), and to visit the Aguas Termales- mineral baths. I needed a good soak.. The baths were pretty simple- basically a warm public pool. Though clean and relaxing for sure. The restaurant food was definitely a big step up in quality and ambience than we have been used to. We spent about $35 for both of us and had more food than we could handle. I had a regular old steak, but Stephen had this grilled piece of lamb that was enormous and crispy and really good actually. It wasn´t a cut of meat that either of us had seen before.. Lets just say it seemed to be the back end of the animal, spine, tail and all. It was called Colita in case anyone wants to order it!! We also had the house made juice made from Tambo fruit, which was to my mind way too sweet.
More from La Paz to follow...
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MOM
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Colita??
Maybe Colita was not lamb but a bird? Look at its head, eyes and bick! Loved the pictures of the 3 mamasitas. So tipical of Bolivia. Great picture of you eating coconut mashmallow. Awsome blog; I learn so much about each place you go, for example: the burn of the sugar tablet. Should I try at home? Happy Birthday tomorrow.