Since Wednesday is the main market day in Cochabamba, Carmen Copa, our Care supervisor, was nice enough to show me around La Cancha, Cochabamba’s enormous market. It is huge!

Whatever you are looking for, you are bound to find it at La Cancha. You can buy anything from papayas to pluming equipment to sneakers to eggs. They seriously have everything!

You can even get a cute puppy!

Or buy some delicious peaches …..

Here I am with my favorite shop keeper who supplied me with some totally “legit” and very cheap CDs.

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?