If you have spent any time in Bolivia you have probably a good chunk of time on one of these. It’s a mirco!

Micros are ubiquitous in any Bolivian city and they are probably the cheapest and one of the most efficient ways to get around. They follow set routes but you can hop on and off at any point. Volunteers in Cochabamba take them all the time between their home stays and placements and become “mirco” experts. Although the routes seem like a mystery at first, you get to learn the route numbers or letters set behind the windshields real quick and they often list what streets are followed. I only wish the New York subway was this cheap since a ride on a mirco will cost you 1.5 Bolivianos (.20 US cents)!

Do any volunteers or travelers in Bolivia have any good stories about their mirco rides?

Orchid at Puerto Villarroel

Since Friday was a National Holiday, I traveled with Dani, our Country Director in Bolivia, and Ximena, one of our Project Supervisors, to visit our projects in Puerto Villarroel, a small town which is located on the Rio Ichilo in the Chapare region where we have our Day Care Project and Yacami Farm project. Two words: green and wet. Shouldn’t I have expected this since it is in the rainforest?

Puerto Villarroel is about a 4 hour ride from Cochabamba and the two places couldn’t be more different. While Cochabamba is large, bustling and dry, Puerto Villarroel is small, quite and wet. Just two hours into our journey we climbed past the mountainous landscape above the Cochabamba valley and then ten minutes later we were twisting and turning around the breathtaking road surrounded by the jungle and spectacular vistas as we rode down to the steaming tropical valleys. It was breathtaking mostly for the amazing views but also for our driver’s proclivity to play cat and mouse with the oncoming trucks!

Once we made it to Puerto Villarroel we relaxed and ate an amazing meal whipped up by our Puerto Villaroel supervisor, Emma. Above, is the main volunteer house where the kitchen and common room is located. Volunteers come here to eat or just hang out and relax in one of the hammocks on the other side of the building.

Part of the Yacami Farm Project, whose produce is donated to local schools and the day care center we also work in, is taking care of the many chickens we have. Below is a picture of our very productive chickens and their coop which takes up a part of the 5 hectare farm.

Chicken Coop

Our very content rooster who looks over a brood of 20 hens

Below is a photo of the PAN ((Plan Alimenticio Nacional) Day Care Center which is a quick 5 minute walk down the street from the volunteer house. This is where our Care and Community volunteers assist local staff members and help out with different activities. Our volunteers also took part on a “dirty weekend” a while ago and painted this entrance to the day care. They show much more artistic talent then I ever had but one of these animals is slightly out of place. Can you guess which one? Mind you this is the Amazon Rainforest.

This is the famous “Clipper” which serves as a tourist information center, restaurant, café, community meeting point and bar. It is a great place to grab a coffee or a cold cervaza.

The Clipper

This is the one and only paved road leading to Puerto Villarroel.

A great shot of the Rio Ichilo from the Clipper.

One of my favorite things about Puerto Villarroel is that there are only a couple of phone lines into the town so if you want to make a call to someone in Puerto you make a call to the public phone and then the local operator will yell over a bull horn the person’s name and to come to the phone. So throughout the day you will hear “Will Harper, Will Harper, you have a phone call and they will call back in 10 minutes”, but obviously in Spanish. One of the games we played this weekend was trying to guess which names the operator was yelling out!

Overall, it was a great trip to see a different part of the country and now I understand why so many volunteers and the staff rave about going to Puerto Villarroel.

Today Ana Silvia, our Desk Officer in Bolivia, took me on a tour around the center of Cochabamba which is typically part of the induction tour ever volunteer receives after they arrive and a quick walk from our office on Calle Sucre. The main highlight of the tour was getting to around Cochabamba’s beautiful main square, Plaza 14 de Septiembre.

Here is an aerial shot of the Plaza 14 de Septiembre

The Plaza is a hive of daytime activity. The Plaza is surrounded by some gorgeous colonial buildings and one side is bordered by Cochabamba’s cathedral which was begun in 1571 and is the valley’s oldest religious structure. Given its central location and prominence in the city, any political activity or strike starts here making the Plaza very busy given the Bolivian proclivity for political demonstrations! Consequently, it is a great place to people watch or even watch a mime in action!

A mime doing his thing on the corner of the Plaza

If you are a volunteer in Bolivia or just find your way to Cochabamba, I would recommend heading to the Plaza 14 de Septiembre to soak up some Bolivian culture as well as some of Cochabamba’s beautiful weather.

Why can’t it be this nice in New York now?

There seem to be two “convenient” ways to get to Cochabamba, Bolivia where our office and the vast majority of our volunteer placements are. One is to fly through Buenos Aires, Argentina and the other is through Sao Paolo, Brazil. On the way there I took the Brazilian route from Sao Paolo to Bolivia. Since it was my first time in South America, I asked for a window seat and watched the world below and what a sight! About an hour into the flight all I could see below me was a sea of green, more green and then some more green. It was amazing. With no clouds in sight, all I could see 30,000 feet below me was untouched jungle. There were no roads, buildings or any sort of signs of human kind. In this ever so globalized world of 6 billion souls, it is hard to imagine a place without electricity, TV, internet or roads but that was exactly what I was seeing pass below me. It really makes you think about how big this planet is and how important it is to keep this untouched land untouched.

More about Cochabamba and our projects in Bolivia will be coming soon ….

On Friday, I was fortunate enough to visit the ancient site of Incallajta, 132 km east of Cochabamba, with Ana Silvia, the Desk Officer in our Bolivia office. It takes three hours to get there through the beautiful scenery of the highlands and it was a perfect trip for a art history buff like myself.

A view from the car ride to Incallajta

The ruins are set in a remote valley and rarely visited. On the day Ana Silvia and I visited, we were the only ones there! It was certainly a nice change of pace from the busy commotion of Cochabamba.

A set of ruins at the entrance to the site

More pictures and information about Incallajta after the jump

MORE…

More ruins

Incallajta was most likely built in the 1460s by the Inca Emperor Tupac Yupanqui and it formed the easternmost outpost of the Incan empire. Although it looks nothing like Cuzco, Peru at the moment, several researchers believe that is was also designed as a sort of ceremonial replica to Cuzco, the Inca capital.

The first thing I noticed was that the site is enormous as it covers over 12 hectares! The main building is the kallanka, which served as a meeting hall. Although all that survives today are its exterior walls, the roof was supported by immense columns.

Here I am in front of the walls of the kallanka and I am not a small person!

More views of the kallanka, isn’t it big?

Ana Silvia and I also did a little hiking and discovered a beautiful water fall on the east end of the site

The waterfall

Ana Silvia in front of the waterfall!

Stairway to heaven, haha!

Incallajta is truly an amazing site and I would recommend checking out the impressive ruins if you are ever in the Cochabamba area. The remoteness and scenery of the surrounding countryside are worth the trip and you get to see a part of Bolivia you would miss out on if you only stayed in bustling Cochabamaba.

Luis with our Bolivia Team

By Luis Arguedas, Costa Rica Country Director

Bolivia is a very nice country. It has huge mountains, some of the tallest in the world. It also has part of the Amazon and 37 different aboriginal cultures with their own language and ways of life. Right away, you can imagine the diversity and also the amount of effort the country has to do to integrate its people and manage social problems. After the “sorocho” (altitude sickness because of lack of oxygen) the second impression on the country is its poverty. I am not saying this because I am a pessimist; I say it because right out from the airport zone in La Paz, we encounter the city of “El Alto” where poverty and lack of all urban planning is really apparent.

When I arrived to Cochabamba, where the office of Projects Abroad is in Bolivia, I felt better. It is only at 2600m. (by the way, El Alto is at only 4100m). The people at the office there are just great. I was really well treated and every staff member is just full of kindness.

The next day and for the whole week, I visited their projects and had the opportunity to talk with Daniela (Bolivia s country director) about ideas and ways of managing the program. It was really helpful and enriching since as a Country Director, sometimes it is not easy to compare projects and share experiences at a distance. This trip really helped me to see more what we have been doing well in Costa Rica and what we have to improve and, thanks to Daniela, I have very good tools to improve some aspects of the program right away.

Something else that really impressed me is the type of projects in Bolivia. Being one of the poorest countries in Latin America, there is a huge need for help in the areas in which Projects Abroad is involved (by the way, they are doing a terrific job) and the volunteers get involved 110% in their projects. I visited a medical placement where a volunteer helped vaccinating 50,000 people in its first week against Yellow Fever. I could go on for pages and pages, but Matthew would not like me much if I take up the whole space in this newsletter!

I want to thank Projects Abroad for this experience and the kind people of Bolivia, not just the staff, but everyone who I encounter. They are really welcoming and genuine people.

For anyone who wants to go to Bolivia, I recommend it sincerely, and maybe, in the near future I will be returning for some holidays there because I really want to have time to visit this wonderful country.

Faye and child in Cochabamba, Bolivia

By Faye Stickings, Programme Advisor and intrepid South American traveler

I have just returned from a trip to Bolivia and Argentina to meet our staff, view our projects and work on a new job role that is under development.

After three flights via Brazil and Paraguay, 16hrs in the air and numerous cups of coffee later I finally made my way out of Cochabamba airport (with my bag intact!) to meet our Director Dani. Cochabamba, where our office is based is renowned for it’s year round warm climate and I was not disappointed. The city has a very Spanish colonial feel to it, with large central squares that are perfect for sitting with an espresso and reading Los Tiempos (one of the national papers where Projects Abroad places out journalism volunteers) in your downtime. Our new office is right in the heart of Cochabamba and always full of volunteers taking a free Spanish lesson or catching up with our crazy staff team (I do believe on a few occasions I witnessed Carmen and Alejandra singing along in Spanish to Jon Bon Jovi…..that puts a whole new meaning to the phrase ‘whistle while you work!!’)

Central Square in Cochabamba

he majority of our projects are in and around the city. Along with Eric, our Medical Supervisor, I spent some time with the doctors and volunteers at The Burns Unit, which cares for severely injured children. Volunteers are assisting in surgeries, helping with the dressings as well as doing a great deal of one-to-one physiotherapy. I also managed to visit volunteers working in the Centro de Salud hospitals, orphanages (I managed to resist pulling the adoption papers out – just!!) and day-care centres in the province of Cochabamba. Maria Christina is an orphanage for mentally challenged children, which Projects Abroad took adopted from the government in 2005 to re-develop. The work our volunteers have done and continue to do is astonishing, and we have recently built a new block specifically for physio and intensive therapy.

Read more about our new community development program after the jump

Volunteer lodge in Puerto Villarroel

Our new community development project is based in a small pueblo on the banks of the river Ichilo in Puerto Villarroel. Dani and I took the 5hr bus drive over the mountains to stay in the village and see how the developments are coming along at our Yacami Farm Project and in our volunteer lodge. Bolivian’s (and especially long distance bus drivers) tend to chew on the Coca leaves when crossing the mountains as they are known for curing altitude sickness. I don’t think I can find the words to describe the taste, but they sure did work (apparently they make a good tea as well, but I didn’t run the risk of smuggling a few leaves back….I didn’t want to end up in the Heathrow ‘something to declare’ section!!). My time in Bolivia was extremely constructive and it was good to see so many of our volunteers making such a difference (and learning Spanish and Quechua incredibly quickly).

More to come about Argentina!