El Altillo
First, big news: I'm living in a new room now! The guy who was living upstairs in what's called the altillo has returned to the US (he goes to school in Illinois), so I'm living there now. It's beautiful and has a lot more space than I did before!
I have two beds to choose from:
An office/living room:
A kitchen:
And a great view of the city:
So, here's a huge thanks to Blanca and Zulema for setting it up for me!
Wandering
Yesterday, after being at the hospital all morning, Joyce, Alexa, and I wandered around Cochabamba all day. We went to a museum which gave a history of the tribes that used to (and still do!) live in the area. One cool, but also gross, thing I learned was that the Incas used to make drums out of the skin of their defeated enemies!
I took some pictures even though it wasn't technically allowed.
This guy is hanging out in a funerary urn - he's from before the Incas were even around!
This guy looks really scared, but apparently your jaw just drops after being dead for a while because your muscles relax or something. You learn these things when traveling with a doctor!
Here's some cool pottery so you don't all think I'm obsessed with the remains of pre-Columbus people or anything:
After being at the museum, we found an art gallery and walked right in! I didn't take pictures there, but trust me when I say it was really cool stuff! Needless to say, we felt very cultural after this outing.
Pizza!
We all needed an energy boost after the morning at the hospital and the afternoon of walking, so we went to Cafe Goss (the sushi/breakfast place I mentioned before) for drinks and to take advantage of their wifi. I got carbonated water (which I haven't ever really liked in the US, but have come to love here) and a tiny espresso, and we all relaxed for a bit. Joyce was working on her presentation for this morning, Alexa was looking for pizza restaurants in Cochabamba (yes, that was my idea), and my phone was dead so I was just people watching.
Here's a picture of the smallest coffee ever:
We found out that the best pizza place in the city was within walking distance, so we started on our way! It was SO GOOD, and we had the sweetest waiter ever.
I got a Neapolitan pizza:
We also shared some amazing thin-crust garlic bread. It was a great excursion.
The Presentation
After dinner, I went back to the office and worked on some rough translations of the slides Joyce had sent me from her PowerPoint so that I would be a little prepared for this morning. It was like doing homework!
This is an example of one of the slides I had to translate:
I definitely feel like a bad Johns Hopkins student, because I don't know what any of the medical words mean! To all my premed friends - what you're studying is HARD!
The presentation went really well, and when I stumbled over the complicated stuff, there were enough people who spoke some English to fill in the gaps.
Here's a picture of Joyce presenting and me standing there trying to figure out how to translate what she's saying:
After the presentation, we went to get salteñas at Sol y Sombra (the place Nate recommended on our first day). I think I have, unfortunately, developed a taste aversion to salteñas and empanadas after the charque meat, because I can't even think about eating them anymore. It was fine, though, and I'm glad we made it there before Joyce and Alexa left.
Church
We wandered around again and ended up at a beautiful church; there was even a man singing and playing the guitar when we were there!
The outside:
And the inside:
CEA Again
Later, Blanca drove the three of us to the CEA so we could help out, since we didn't have anything else scheduled today. The Oxford group was working on preparing the water cisterns they're going to install in a few weeks; the first step was to create a sort of lip on all these sheets of metal so that they can be welded together.
Here's Johnny (from Oxford) and Alexa working on one:
Despedidos
We came back to the city so that Joyce and Alexa could catch their flight to La Paz. It was so sad saying goodbye to my blonde travel buddies! They have a long day of travel tomorrow: La Paz to Lima to Miami to Minnesota. I hope it goes well! And now I'm the only gringa in the entire city - at least that's how it feels.
On the bright side, the Oxford group and I are going to Toro Toro National Park for the weekend! There are dinosaur footprints, swimming holes, hiking trails, and a rare species of macaw! We're leaving at 4:30 in the morning, and there are 8 people going in a 7-seat car, so that should be a fun 3+ hour drive.
Here's today's cute street dog:
Ciao! (It's kind of a pun because this dog looks like it's part chow. Can't help myself.)
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