Cochabamba is stunningly beautiful, its kind of a sunken city surrounded by these huge mountains, the scenery and landscape is the most amazing I have ever seen.
On arrival I was taken to my host family who I absolutely love, they are so nice and welcoming. In terms of Bolivia in general I have found the people to be some of the warmest I have ever met. Almost everybody you see on the street greets each other. My family do not speak much spanish, except the daughter who speaks fluently. My spanish is awful but I learn more every day and am getting by fine. I have had two Spanish lessons so far, so I have a way to go.
The weekend I arrived was bank holiday weekend so the city had kind of shut down, which was good in a way because it gave me time to settle in. The house I am staying in is really nice, my host family only moved here around 3 weeks ago, but its very nice, and in a really nice neighbourhood.
In terms of my vegetarianism I have so far encountered no problems. My host family make amazing meals for me without meat. Lunch is the big meal of the day, its a big family affair and everyone gets together and takes time over it. Its a shame in some ways that we do not have that in our culture, where we maybe have one or two family meals a week because everyone is too busy doing their own thing. I ate out twice yesterday for the first time with some other volunteers. For lunch we went to a vegetarian buffet which was very nice, I thought that it was soup and salad which is a good lunch for me, but then there was a second course of quinoa! One thing Cochabambinos do not know is portion control. Also the buffet was 1 pound 30, bargain. They eat so much food its insane. It is known as the gastronomical capital of Bolivia and I have never been anywhere else where there is so much food available, street vendors, markets and restaurants/cafes everywhere. In the night I went to a sushi bar and got veggie yakisoba. So, so far no problems. In fact I will be writing an article this week about vegetarianism in Cochabamba.
To get to work, I get the micro, which is effectively a bus....except there are no stops, so you just flag it down whenever and get off when you tell the driver. The traffic here gets really bad at times, there is a lot more traffic than I expected. To get the bus into town costs me 15p, so as you can see living out here is very cheap! I have a good 10 minute walk either side of the micro, one of which where my house is, is up the most enourmous hill, though I have had little trouble with the altitude, the best thing is to take it slow. I have been told that people with bad circulation do not suffer as much with altitude sickness, so maybe that is why I have felt fine. One things for certain though when I leave Cochabamba I will have a killer set of lungs thanks to that hill, which is great for when I move to higher ground.
Work is going well, I have a couple of articles on the go at the minute. Trying to review Zona Sur, a Bolivian film released last year, but it is hard to get a copy, I think this may have something to do with the fact that it is politically challenging, I will see on Monday though.All the other volunteers are really nice.
Tomorrow we are taking a trip to Tarata which is like 45 minutes south of Cochabamba, we will take the bus. Apparently they make bread with their feet there which is interesting, I am not sure whether I will be trying any though, not if the people making it have feet like mine.
I cannot upload any pictures yet because there is no usb port in the cafe, I will probably do it at work or something.
Hasta Luego.
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