Hecktic Travels

As you can see from my post below – a lot of our time has been devoted to our Spanish lessons! When we’re not in class and studying, there have been a few things to keep us busy these days.

Monday night we went to a local gringo hangout called the Joy Ride Café to eat dinner with friends from our school and to watch an award winning documentary called “The Devil’s Miner”. It is based on the life of a 14 year old boy named Basillo who works in a silver mine to support his family. It is set in Potosi – a small city close to Sucre. For hundreds of years, Bolivians have been sacrificing their lives to work in this dangerous mine – it is called the “mountain that eats men alive” as there is estimated to have been 8 million lives lost through this work. It is also estimated that there are currently 500 children working in these mines today. It was a devastatingly sad movie that will surely play on our minds when we go to visit there as we leave Sucre. It also makes us look a little differently at this city we are staying in – the beautiful white washed buildings were built based on the income from the silver deposits. What an incredible cost.

Tuesday was a fairly sedentary day. After class we headed to the main square for lunch and then spent the afternoon doing homework. Tuesday night was the first time Pete cooked dinner for us at our hostel – there is a kitchen available for all of the guests to use but there are two Dutch families here that hog all of the evening in there! We had to strategize to get in there early and then just eat a cold supper later (Pete made a delicious rice salad!) Talk about a cheap way to live – we went to the supermarket in the afternoon for some groceries: bag of rice, soya sauce, oil, salt and pepper, balsamic vinegar, vegetables, a couple of bottles of pop, mustard, tomato paste, bar of soap…all for $10! If only we could get in the kitchen all the time (hopefully the Dutch families leave soon!)

Wednesday I dealt with my first bout of my-body-is-not-used-to-this-food-so-it-is-going-to-“run”-outta-me-if-ya-know-what-I-mean! It wasn’t too bad, but did slow us down for the day. We had planned to play wallyball with our friends from the school, but had to bail due to my "condition". Was bound to happen sometime soon I guess! If only I had Pete’s stomach of steel, as we’ve been eating almost the exactly same thing and he has been fine!

I also learned a valuable lesson on Wednesday. Before we came here, I had done a lot of research on what to wear, what to pack, etc. I had read that the locals don’t wear shorts, so to do so would make us standout for sure. Well, I tested that theory today, and boy did I ever feel uncomfortable! Everyone was looking at me quite funny. Once I came home after class and lunch, I stuffed those shorts into the bottom of my backpack, and they won’t resurface until we are at least somewhere more touristy where I won’t stand out as much!

So here we are late Thursday afternoon - decided to have lunch at the hostel and came out for dinner. Our plan is to eat one meal out a day so that we can catch up on the computer (most of the gringo restaurants have wifi so we can use our own laptop) – sick of sitting in slow internet cafés. Looking forward to the weekend! Tomorrow night our school is putting on a cooking class to learn how to make a traditional Bolivian dish (you gotta know Pete is excited about that!) Saturday we are debating taking a hiking tour to a town near here that is actually situated in a dormant volcano crater, and then Sunday we might head to Tarabuco, another small town near here that has a huge market with food, textiles, crafts, and other goods made locally. May start my Christmas shopping early (considering how long it might take to mail it!)

We’ll see how heavy our homework is for the weekend first!

Until next time…xoxo
Dalena y Pedro