Camping, Fishing, and Fiesta-ing...

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6-8 October 2006

By Andrew:

On our first day in Cochabamba while shopping in (where else?) a fishing store, I met a guy named Boris Gandarillas Perez who would prove to be a true friend. We got to talking and shared a mutual enthusiasm for fishing. He expressed an interest in travelling with Leigh and I to different near-by fishing locations to sow us his favorite spots. After talking with him a few times and meeting up with him for lunch, he and I made a plan to escape from the city for a day. He is in the second to last year of law school and was able to ask for a day off from his practicum at the regional civil court.We had some really great excursions, and he repeatedly encouraged me to have any friends who were visiting Cochabamba from the states, that like to fish or go trekking, contact him. His email is sirob44win@yahoo.es and phone 4480049 or 76422627. (you may need to add the Bolivia country code).

On Friday October 6th, I left Leigh for the longest number of hours since we have been in South America. It was tough for both of us, but I had a fishing rod and a beautiful lake to keep me company. I headed off east from Cochabamba through Sacaba and Melga to the small pueblito of San Isidro, which is about 45 minutes up into the mountains. There we walked about a kilometer or two down a dirt road until we arrived at the Laguna (small Lake) (see picture). We stopped by the houses of a few of the campsinos who lived there, that are his friends and then set out walking around the lake. We soon found a friend of his fishing who gave us some of his worms, which we used to catch Pejerrey (see picture). We spent about 2 hours wandering about the lake fishing, and I caught a couple of relatively small size ones. We then caught a ride with his friend back to his house, where a delicious lunch of rice, onions, and fresh rabbit was waiting for us. Rather than return the way we had come, we set out across the relatively open country to drop back down to the highway. From San Isidro, we descended down through a natural bridge (see picture) and into a small canyon. after about a 1.5 hour delightful trek we arrived at the church in Melga and easily caught a ride back to Cochabamba.

Friday night involved going out with the parents from our host family, Willy and Doris had promised a wild night and did not fail to deliver. Alas our camera did not come along. . . We began at The Black Mount Pub, where the beers are as large as swimming pools. This large basement pub seats about 200 people, who drink, play pool, cacho (see previous entry), or just hang out. All of this occurs while watching any of the televisions with 1980s american music videos. There is a plenty loud sound system and a V-Jay who takes requests. . . It is impossible to construct a full list, but highlights included:

Rapture - Blondie
Raspberry Beret - Prince
Steppin´ Out - Joe Jackson
Pour Some Sugar on Me - Def Lepard
Emotional Rescue - The Rolling Stones (Thanks to Steve McNulty for learning all the lyrics with me back in 9th grade so that I could sing along and be impressive)
etc. . .

By 11:30 or so Leigh and I were starting to feel pretty cooked, but we were shepherded into a cab and whisked off to a "First Friday" party, that apparently happens each month. . . See this blog entry for a description http://www.democracyctr.org/blog/2005/08/scent-of-first-friday.html The party that we attended involved about 400 people in a large open courtyard, and under a warehouse like roof, listening to about 20 live musicians with flutes, drums, panpipes, guitars, ukeleles etc. We alternately ran, stood, danced as (and I saythis literally) buckets of home made corn liquor (chicha) were passed around. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicha

At 2AM the party showed no signs of slowing down, but Willy and Doris decided that it was time to head for a discoteque. Leigh and I were ready to hit the sack and fled home. . . apparently we were considered wimps as our host parents didn´t return until well afterwards.

We awoke the next morning a little the worse for wear and tear, briefly bemoaned the fact that we would not get to play tennis (our mission to play racquet sports continues to be thwarted) and prepared for a two day hike with Boris.

(...to be continued later on when Andrew returns from a trip to ToroToro! Andrew will tell you all about the town we visited that happened to be having its annual celebration, and our fishing adventures in an area just like Ireland!... please stay tuned! )


Meanwhile, if you are interested in some of the big news items here in Bolivia, I found this site which helped me to understand what the roadblocks were about and why miners are killing each other with dynamite: http://www.topix.net/world/bolivia