BOLIVIA

I arrived in Cochabamba, Bolivia, about a week and a half ago. To get here, I first had to travel north for 3 days in buses to the Argenina Bolivia border, where they let you off and basically tell you you´re at the end of the line. From there, I had to walk myself (and all my ever-increasingly heavy pack full of things I just couldn´t possibly do without) a couple of kilometers across the borders-and into Bolivia! It´s amazing how much everything can change with just a couple of steps across an artificial boundary line...different faces, totally different way of speaking, different money, different quality of life...
So I arrived at Sustainable Bolivia that monday after about 4 and a half days on the road. I am completing 2 more weeks of intensive Spanish before I move to my volunteer post working to raise funds and with the communication department of the community aid project Mosoj Yan (http://www.boliviasostenible.org/mosoj_yan.html).

Here I am crossing the border.

On the bus rides through northern Argentina and southern Bolivia I saw some of those most breathtaking places I´ve seen anywhere in South America so far.

You can see large statues of Jesus on hills in just about any decent-sized city in Bolivia. This is the view from the back porch of my room in the Lopez´s home.

And this past weekend I alrea dy managed to get out of the city with some other volunteers. We went to Chapare, a region which they call semi-jungle because it still has some altitude, but it sure seemed jungly enough to me... ¡HOT!

Funny-looking caterpillar? You be the judge.

We went sunday for a hike in an animal refuge full of animals recovered from unnatural or hostile situations.

And here´s the house where I´m living now! It´s really big, and there´s an annex out back where the uncle lives. In our house are myself, Cecilia, 19, Erik, 23, Elizabeth, their mom, and abuelita. They´re delightful, prepare three meals a day and answer all my questions about the city and Bolivia in an incredibly amicable and helpful fashion.

So here I am until mid-june. I hope that Aline and possibly Didier and Julia will be coming up withing that time and we´ll do a bit more traveling together, or perhaps in mid-june when my volunteer commitment ends. Then, on my birthday at the end of June, I will fly from Buenos Aires back to the United States. I have definately entered a different, and what seems to be close to the final, stage in this South American trip for me...not because it has to be, but because it all feels very natural all the sudden... just like almost nothing did before. I didn´t know when or even if I´d ever go back...I didn´t want to know...I didn´t have a plan, know what I was doing in the sense of some grander scheme, I was totally loose and free...And I feel now like having done that was possibly the only way that I could feel right about taking the steps that I am now preparing to take for the future, even though I will reserve the righ t to change my mind. I miss old Oregon deeply, but I know that I will see and and value it differently this next time around...until then, I feel like I have a new liscence to live and really go for it in the months to come, taking them for all they´re worth. So here goes, and

¡Viva Bolivia!