"If you ask me why I travel, I would ask you why you breathe.”
This week I have been doing Spanish, Spanish, and more Spanish. After three or four hours at my Spanish school, I have been going to my teachers house to get extra lessons. She is young (twenty five, with a two year old kid), and by far the best Spanish teacher I have had yet. Though I still have a long way to go, this week definitely helped to improve my Spanish. I have also been living in a home stay for a change from all the hostels these last few months. Though mostly all I did this week besides Spanish was wander around, sit in plazas and people watch, and buy alpaca cloths, I did go out one night to a football match. It was an important game here in Bolivia, and it was very fun to see. The ambiance was infectious, and I ended up picking and rooting for a team even though I knew nothing about either of them. It was definitely different than the games I have been to in Europe though. For one, there was no alcohol, and it was the traditionally dressed ladies who were selling food and drinks. Also, there were hundreds of police officers in the stadium, about fifty on the field, and the rest in the stands (on duty). Besides that though, it was like anywhere else, with thousands of people chanting and yelling for their team.
Since I don't have much to say about this week, I will write instead about some of the things I have noticed in my almost four months of traveling.
The people- There are many traditionally dressed woman everywhere, in the cities as well as in the country, especially here in Bolivia. There are also beggars everywhere (much more here than in the other countries as it is the poorest country in South America). Often they are older and obviously sick, but there are also a fair number of children. One step up from a beggar are the street sellers of useless things. For instance it's not unusual to see a five or six year old selling shoe laces, or trying to get you to weigh yourself on their scale. Then there are the shoe cleaners who you pass every few minutes. They ask anyone and everyone who passes whether you want your shoes cleaned, and a surprising amount of locals take them up on the offer. Almost all of these guys wear masks, which I found out was because they are drug addicts and don't want to show their face. Sometimes these guys have two or three small children at their feet as well.
The food- In my last two countries as well as here, the food has been rice, chicken, meat, and fried fish. Here though, everything is extremely fried. For example, an egg here is fried in a pool of oil, so it turns into a spongy oil filed egg. They eat sausages, hamburgers, and fries, not the healthiest diet. Even though fruits and veggies are so fresh, cheap, and abundant here, they never seem to appear in their meal plan. There is something called "the meal of the day" in all of South America, that you can buy for a dollar or two from the market or little restaurants. There are normally three to seven options for the main meal, and it always comes with a soup. There are also ladies everywhere that sell smaller snack foods (such as empanadas, kebabs, stuffed potatoes...) as well as fresh juices (fresh squeezed orange juice is the most common, but there are also stands with any fruit you could think of).
Transportation- People don't have their own cars here, so the streets are filled with taxis and collectivos. Taxis, which only coast a dollar or two to go anywhere, are a very convenient way to get around, though lately I have taken to using the very very cheap collectivos. These are vans, stuffed with as many people will fit, that seem to go all over town. They have six or seven signs on them naming places, so you flag down the one that looks like it's going where you want (they don't always end up exactly where you had hoped) and you hop on. Often the person collecting the money and opening the door is a kid, sometimes as young as six or seven. Also, for long distances, busses are extremely cheap (until you get down to Argentina). You can count on the equivalent of a dollar per hour (a ten hour bus ride is ten dollars) though you have to pay a bit more if you want to go in comfort. Here in Bolivia only about thirty percent of the roads are paved, and sometimes they don't even go on dirt paths, they make up their own way. Now that it is the rainy season, I might have some trouble getting around since sometimes the roads are flooded for days.
Everyday differences- Toilet paper doesn't exist here. Well ok, it does, but it is never in the bathrooms so you always have to have your own supply on you. There are no traffic rules. Here in La Paz there are no stop signs, so the cars just have to push their way though, it's a traffic nightmare. Also, you have to haggle here, especially being white (because some of them try and give you tourist prices). In the market as well as in big stores (except for grocery stores), nothing has a fixed price. Lastly, it is dirty, very dirty here. Sadly, people dump their trash into the river (which smells and looks like a sewage pipe) and leave it on the streets. At night, the dogs (which there are hundreds of) and homeless people tear through the bags trying to find something to eat.
Well today I decided this whole being bored relaxing doing nothing thing is not going over so well for me, so I am going to go climb a mountain. Because of the weather, I was originally going to skip this one (and actually be done for the season), but I have changed my mind.
Amusing side note (this sort of thing has happened on countless occasions): Today I was talking to the lady who runs my Spanish school, and she asked me where I am from. I answered back with Estados Unidos, after which she proceeded to ask me whether I was anything else as well. I told her that I am Canadian, to which she answered, ah well that makes more sense, you don't act like an American at all. This is not the first time someone has brought up the fact that I can't really be an American, but must be something else. They also can't say my name here, so I have currently taken to introducing myself as "Shi." I knew I should have changed my name before coming!
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