Street Graffiti in Cochabamaba. Here an artist has rendered Cochabamba state within a map of Bolivia.

After 26 hours of traveling and I am back home from a two week trip to Bolivia where I was visiting placements, meeting with volunteers and training a staff member. Hence the lack of recent blog posts! I apologize to the blog’s loyal readers.

I actually went down to Bolivia with the intention of live blogging my whole trip or at least put up a new blog post every day about my trip. I even brought my laptop with me for this express purpose but, alas, my computer for some reason wouldn’t recognize the internet at our office in Cochabamba.

Consequently, I was left with all these new blog posts and photos but with no place to put them! This is why with the help of technology I am going to be uploading the blog posts for my trip to Bolivia from October 30th to today. Although they will be a little late and not necessarily “live blogged”, I hope you enjoy them!

I thought I would hold off until my last day in Cochabamba to visit and do a post about probably the most iconic image of the city, the statue of Cristo De La Concordia. The statue stands on a hill overlooking Cochabamba and is visible from close to every point in the city. It is actually a couple of centimeters higher than the more famous Cristo Redentor in Rio De Janeiro, which was recently named to the “New Seven Wonders of the World”.

Grabbing a taxi or walking the 1250 steps (I would recommend the taxi!) to the top is a nice way to spend a lazy afternoon over the weekend and it affords some amazing views. Below you can see the city of Cochabamba and even make out the peak of Cerro Tunari at 5035 m in the upper right hand corner.

There are more photos after the jump

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Me with the Christo. It was a very bright day! Notice the sun burn?

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

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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.

Merve with kids

Today I was able to get out of the office a little bit and visit some of our Care and Community placements with Carmen Copa, our Care program supervisor. We first visited an orphanage on the outskirts of Cochabamba in the town of Quillacollo. The orphanage houses boys and girls between the ages of 4 and 15 but when we visited all of the older children were at school while our volunteers helped the local staff members with the care of the younger children. The children live in smaller houses (casitas) with around 10 kids per a house, so it is like a little village!

It was just my luck that when we arrived, it was playground time!

More photos of volunteers and the kids after the jump!

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These are some of my playground buddies. They have way more energy than me!

Since playground time was the favorite time of the day growing up, I jumped at the chance to help out our volunteers and supervise play time. For the next hour, I was supervising the jungle gym, running around and manning the swing set as three boys with boundless energy wanted to be swung higher and higher. By the end of our playtime, I was exhausted! But everyone on the playground was calling me “tio” or uncle so that made it all worth while.

We moved indoors to visit with three volunteers, Merve, LauraBeth and Phyllis who were looking after children in their casitas.

Here is Phyllis!

Here is LauraBeth!

As each house has a TV and DVD player, a treat for the kids is to watch some music videos. Here is Merve overseeing an impromptu dance party.

Besides assisting the local staff, our volunteers on the Care and Community program have initiated a daily activities session where the children do group activities, solve puzzles, play with blocks and draw. The kids love it and it really helps them with their development.

A big thank you to all our volunteer “tia” and “tios” in Bolivia who are helping and making such a big difference!