Semana Tecnica - Parte 1

On the road...notice the bull horns from the sweet skull we had attached to the land cruiser.

We just got back from the madness of semana tecnica (tech week). It was only about 9 days but felt like a lifetime. But it was mostly great. We started off our trip headed to Villa Tunari, a cute little tourist town in the Chapare region. As a PC volunteer we are normally not allowed to stay in the Chapare region, merely to pass through it. The reasoning being that this is the area where the vast majority of coca is grown and well... it´s just not a good idea for gringos to be wandering around the coca fields. But don´t worry, the town of Villa Tunari is safe. It´s actually a tourist destination for a lot of Bolivians. It´s kind of a shame we´re not allowed to stay there because it is a really beautiful area. Very lush and tropical. Steep mountains and winding rivers. You could tell how beautiful is was just passing through by moonlight.

We were allowed to stay the night there because there was a landslide a few weeks before and a big chunk of the highway was only open for travel in our direction late at night. And when I say there was a landslide I mean like half a mountain collapsed onto the highway. It was a very impressive sight! There was a stretch of road about 100 yards long completely covered in mud. When we passed they had cleared enough for one lane of traffic to pass through. And the line of trucks and buses on the other side of the road block was incredible! Seriously, the longest line of traffic I have ever seen in my life. It must have been over 15 miles long. I have no idea how long those people were waiting there or how long they would have to continue to wait, but our trainers were guessing that it would be a two day ordeal for the ones in the back of the line. Imagine spending two days on a bus! Bienvenidos a Bolivia! That was actually the reason they flew all of us back to Coch from Santa Cruz yesterday. It´s not clear whether there was another problem with the road or the same, but they didn´t want all of us to be stuck in the middle of the jungle...which I appreciate.

Parque Nacional Amboro.

We spent the afternoon in Buena Vista and sat in for a talk about Parque Nacional Amboro and the tourist attractions in Buena Vista. I not sure whether the guy giving the talk understood that we were volunteers, not tourists... but it worked. It would be nice to spend a weekend there. Then we spent the night in Santa Cruz a big cosmopolitan city. I got to go out with a few current volunteers and chat about their experiences. It´s really nice when you find positive enthusiastic volunteers.

Then we were off to visit two future sites of ours. One was a tiny little town with about 600 people. As we passed through it it looked like a ghost town. There was absolutely nobody in the streets. It turned out they were all in a town meeting at the school. All I was thinking was ¨Oh my... I think I could go crazy in a site like this¨. I´m just worried I´d be bored out of my mind, sitting in my room reading book after book. We also visited another site a relatively large city which was definitely more my speed. I´m keeping my fingers crossed for one of the two larger cities among our list of future sites. There´s more structure to the work and there´s always plenty of work to do. No excuses to be bored. And besides that I´d like to be able to eat out at a nice place once in a while, take guitar and dance lessons, have a toilet and shower...ya know those modern conveniences. You lose that small town everybody knows you (and your business) feel, but overall I think it would be a better fit for me. Well see where I get sent. There doesn´t seem to be a lot of competition for sites within our group which is good. We find out where we´ll be living for the next two years tomorrow! Exciting times!

To be continued....