Bye Bye Bolivia

Hi again! Sorry for the long wait between this and the last post - I haven't had very reliable wifi and I also haven't been taking pictures much. However, I do have some updates to share!

Monday

I spent Monday recovering from the weekend, so I spent a lot of time walking to various plazas with my book. Eventually, I ended up at my favorite cafe to grab lunch. I ended up running into a group of guys we had met in Toro Toro (two from England, one from Canada, and one from Colorado), which was a crazy coincidence! I guess that's what happens when you travel, though! I hung out with them while they planned the rest of their trip in the cafe (we definitely overstayed our welcome there, but the wifi is hard to resist). Then, we all went to the Italian place I had been before. I got gnocchi this time and it was DELICIOUS!

Tuesday

I spent Tuesday morning doing pretty much the same thing, walking around Cochabamba and drinking coffee in various locations. I went back to the office once I thought everyone would be there to ask some questions for the Minnesota office about what we ship. I spent the rest of the day translating some kids' books that were sent from Minnesota. They have beautiful pictures and the stories are really cute, but they're all in English! Here's a pile of the books I translated Tuesday:

Tuesday night, I went with Blanca to buy seats for the festival we (myself and the Oxford group) attended yesterday. The festival is called an entrada, and basically consists of folk dancers putting on a parade from 11 am to 2 am. There were basically 43 billion people watching, and people were actually camped out so they could get the best seats in the morning. 

Wednesday

I spent Wednesday morning translating some more books, after I went to get a very American breakfast. Here's a picture:

The Oxford group showed up around 3, and we headed off to the parades. It was a really cool experience, and it didn't seem like there were many tourists at all. We drew a lot of attention, but had no problems. 

There were quite a few terrifying masks, like this one:

One thing we found amusing was that the boys all seemed to be having a blast, like this guy below, but that all the girls looked miserable and exhausted. 

He has a llama on his hat:

Mickey Mouse was there (dressed in his finest American flag apparel for some reason):

Barney made an appearance as well (I tried to talk to him but was ignored):

We also saw Sid the Sloth from Ice Age:

We were all just confused by the end, but had a lot of fun anyway! We decided to go back to Cochabamba to eat dinner (at the Italian place again - and there's only one waiter so I tried to hide my face as much as possible). We couldn't get in touch with the taxi company for which we had a phone number, so we spent about an hour trying to figure out how to get back and ended up going on a bus. It wasn't scary at all and was really cheap, so nobody had any complaints. 

Everyone got pizza at the Italian place, and one of the boys actually got a family sized pie (he was, unfortunately, unable to finish it). Here's my pizza: 

It was so so so good. We went back to the Mano a Mano building to check in with Blanca (who tends to worry about visitors) and to get the group a taxi back to the CEA. One of Blanca's sons was there, and he drove them back, which was super nice! I actually drove with them, because I was having severe anxiety about never seeing them again. The group from Oxford is seriously awesome - I wish I could have stayed with them for the rest of their trip! 

Thursday

This morning, I went to hang out with some kids at a girls' home. I thought that I was leaving tomorrow night, so I had planned on spending the whole day there, but it ended up only being half they day. Anyway, the girls were adorable, and they taught me how to jump rope (which I have always been incapable of doing - embarrassing, I know. Gym class in elementary school was always a nightmare)! I hung out with them while they washed their clothes, watched a movie, ate lunch, and got ready for school. 

During lunch time, the high schoolers came back - the older girls go to school in the morning, and the younger girls go in the afternoon. All of them were so so so nice and curious about everything to do with life in the US. I was asked by pretty much all the high schoolers if I had a boyfriend (I felt like I was letting them all down when I said no), and everyone kept asking me to sing to them! I also got to play some clapping games with the younger girls, which was really fun and obviously adorable. 

Mid-morning, Zulema from the office called to tell me that we had been wrong about when my flight was: it was actually today. I was pretty upset - I had prepared myself to say goodbye to everyone tomorrow, and wasn't really able to. Plus,  I was planning on eating dinner with the Oxford group at the CEA tonight and going dancing with one of Blanca's sons after! I had thought I was really ready to go home, but discovered that I definitely wasn't. 

Anyway, now I'm in my hotel in La Paz (I had to fly here tonight because I fly out early tomorrow morning) watching a One Direction concert on TV. 

Tomorrow, I'll probably publish my final update. Thanks for staying with me throughout the trip!