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Published: February 14th 2007
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Unfortunately, this is the concluding day of my Christmas vacation and it so far has been a blast travelling through southern Bolivia. I know can't wait until April to have more time to see more of the country. I would have to be at the Tarija airport at 3PM, so my time was kind of limited today. The night before we agreed to meet Ira in the main plaza at 10AM to head to the town of Tomatitas for a typical Tarijan lunch. Unfortunately, we never left the hostel until about 10:20AM and that is because Nadia was running behind schedule. She told me that I should have never let her take a shower as that always puts her behind schedule. As the three of us didn't have time for breakfast that morning, we took a quick walk around to find something to tie us over until lunch, and I am sad to say, I had a good helping of ice cream for breakfast and it was really good. We made our way to the bus stop where I caught the bus to San Lorenzo and found a bus pretty much right away. All we knew was the name of a
Remnants of the Goni Empire
Goni was the president who was forced to resign in 2003 due to massive country-wide strikes, protests and blockades. Every so often you find his name in graffiti on walls still. restaurant where the food was suppose to be really good but didn't have any directions. At least Tomatitas seems to be a one street town, so when we finally arrived (after 10 or 15 minutes on the bus), we asked directions and people kept pointing north and finally we came across the restaurant. Nadia had watched a movie on one of her bus rides where she found out that cangrejos (crabs) were suppose to a local delicacy in Tomatitas. As none of us knew what they were, we order a plate of them (15 Bs) between the three of us. When they finally arrived, I can't believe how small these crabs were. At first we looked at them not knowing what to do, but then we decided that they must have to be eaten whole as there was no way to tear them apart to get the little amount of meat out of them. They were so delicious!!! Even with the shell, antennas and eyes 😊 As I have mentioned before, Nadia seems to meet people everywhere, and this day would be no different. She had been talking to a guy she met on a plane ride to Sucre on
her cell phone in the morning, who gave us the name of the restaurant, and him and his lady friend showed up to have lunch with us. They are both from La Paz and the guy, who I can't remember his name, lives about 3 blocks away from me in Sopocachi, the neighbourhood of La Paz that I live in. As the cangrejos didn't fill us, we all order main dishes as well. Ira and I both ordered some type of fish that comes from Bromejo, a town near the Argentinian border. When it arrived, I can't believe how big the fish was and that one person was suppose to eat it all. The fish was very bony but the flesh was delicious and anyone could tell by the fact that I sucked every last bit of meat of the bones. Nadia's friend left the restaurant for a while and came back with a 2L pop bottle filled with chicha de uvas (an alcohol made from grapes). The chicha looked suspect, however, as it was alcohol, I was hoping that the alcohol would kill of anything bad that might be in it. It was so sweet and kind of tasty
Los cangrejos
A plate of little tiny crabs, a local delicicy. You eat the whole thing, including the shell and I must say they were delicious. like grape juice, but I was very aware that it contained alcohol. For anyone who think I was drinking wine, it definitely wasn't wine. After lunch we headed back to Tarija where Nadia, Ira and the two other Paceñans were going to a hotel to swim, however, I didn't have time as I still had to go back to my hostel to pick up my stuff and get to the airport. I still had a bit of time before I had to get to the airport, so I climbed one of the hills in Tarija which was suppose to have a good view of the city, which it did. It is always nice to get a nice panaromic view of a city from above and you can do this alot in Bolivia as there aren't too many flat places, besides Uyuni. At 2:30PM, I went to the hostel to pick up my things and then started walking towards one of the plazas to find a minibus going in the direction of the airport. I must of still been feeling adventurous at that point, because I would usually take an airport to the taxi to make sure I got there on
Different sizes of crabs
The larger crab in this picture is about an inch an a half and that was the biggest one. time. Anyhow, the minibus dropped me off outside the gates of the airport with plenty of time to spare and I made it into the airport before the skies clouded over and decided to release their water back to the earth. From the airport, the terrain looked so flat around Tarija, which gave great views for the electrical storm we had while waiting for our airplane to arrive. My plane ended up leaving right on time, which for Bolivia is very strange, and the flight via Cochabamba, was uneventful. However, starting off in Tarija, stopping in Cochabamba and then finally in El Alto (La Paz), I am pretty sure that I went through three different climate zones. Tarija, being at the lowest altitude of the three, was hot when I left. When I arrived in Cochabamba, the temperature was definitely a few degrees cooler but still very comfortable. Then I arrived in El Alto and I was back into a sweater getting off of the plane. Now unlike the Ottawa airport which I am very used to waiting close to an hour to pick up my luggage, I was off the plane at 6:45PM and I had picked up my
checked-on luggage and was in a minibus to head back to La Paz by 6:58PM. The minibus is definitely the way to get back to La Paz as it uses the autopista (highway) where you get an absolutely amazing view from the city while descending down into it and also, the you can't beat the price. It was 3.80 Bs (60 cents) to get to a plaza relatively close to me. The only problem with the plaza where the bus drops you off is that it is all up hill to my place, so I hopped into a cab for 6 Bs and it took my the rest of the way home. Less than 10 Bs to make it home from the airport, absolutely unbelievable considering the distance I covered.
So another mini vacation has come and gone. The one great thing about this vacation is that it helped me with the tough decision I had to either stay for another six months in Bolivia to work, or to begin travelling in April instead. Travelling is really what I want to do at the moment and I don't think that I could push it off for another six months.
I am really enjoying what I am doing here, and maybe someday after travelling, I'll return to what I am currently doing, but at the moment, I need to have the feeling of freedom, travelling wherever I want, doing whatever I want to do, meeting new people every day and having no commitments, such as a job to go to everyday. I don't know why I had never thought of this idea before, but here is what I would like to do in April. Instead of taking my flight back to Canada and instead of extending my ticket, I am thinking of scrapping it entirely and returning to Canada by means of land, either bus or train probably making it back to Canada by sometime in the fall. This trip would take me through the following countries: Brazil, Uruguay, (Paraguay?), Argentina, Chile, Peru, Ecuador, Columbia, Panama, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Honduras, El Salvador, Guatemala, Belize, Mexico, the west coast of the US, and finally to beautfiul British Columbia (at least that it what people from British Columbia say to me). From Vancouver, I will somehow make my way back to Upper Canada and the East, visiting friends and family along the
way. I hope that this adventures pans out because it sounds very exciting!! So here is an open inviation to anyone I know out there, if you are interested in visiting any of the countries I am planning on seeing along the way, you are welcome to join me at any point along the way. Just let me know where you would like to go and I can probably give you a rough estimate to when I will be there. Hope to see you somewhere in the Americas someday!
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