Cochabamaba Valley

Found out pretty last minute that we were not allowed to take the Friday off work so we could not do the Che Trail, absolutely gutted as I was really looking forward to it. I hope I get to do it before I leave at the end of the month as it is the one thing I really want to do.

Thursday was a bank holiday in Cochabamba, it is Corpus Christi so being in a Catholic country that means day off work but also pretty much everything being closed. I decided to not waste the day off, and wandered around the city, I tried to locate the supermarket, which I stumbled into. I really do not like going to the supermarket here, they are far too westernised and it does not make me feel like I am in Bolivia. I then decided to buy some mandarins from a street vendor I only wanted a few but when she offered me what I thought was 10 for 20bs I thought why not, instead she proceeded to stack over 20 into a bag for 10bs (1 pound) so I had to carry around 20+ mandarins with me for the better part of the day.

I met with some other volunteers and we tried to go to the Palacio Portales which I have already been to, but is a pretty nice place, unfortunately it was closed. And so began the epic fail of a week. I had not really felt well all day and came down with a pretty bad fever on Friday so I did not end up going to work after all. Oh the irony! I stayed in bed all day, as my host family fussed over me.

On Saturday we went to Villa Albina which is Simon Patiños other house in Cochabamba, a mansion he built for his wife. Unfortunately when we got there it was closed, it is only open 9-11 on a Saturday. So Simon Patiño defeated us for the second time in a few days! All we saw was a damn cow. We went to Pairumani park which was less of a park and more of a campsite though we did go on the swings so it was definitely worth it. After that we headed back to Quillacollo which is a little town outside Cochabamba. In the evening we went to the cinema to see Prince of Persia which when we got there obviously both showings would be in Spanish because that was just the sort of day we were having. Despite the website advertising Sex and the City 2 that was also not out. So we ended up (tragically) having to see the bounty hunter, which is definitely in my top 5 worst films I have ever seen and I could not even dignify it with a small review, it was utterly dreadful.

Sunday saw us head to the Quillacollo market which was pretty big, not as big as La Cancha but just as crowded. I did not buy anything and was pretty put off by the amount of raw meat everywhere, especially the bits which still had teeth attached. Gross! We headed to Sipe Sipe, which is a nice little town for a wonder. Not much there, and also a lot was closed as it was a Sunday, but we found a nice restaurant and had a good walk around the town.

So that was my week pretty uneventful, and still pretty dissappointed to not have been blogging about the Che trail, but fingers crossed I will get there at some point.