10 Days in La Paz

Ok, i understand its been a while, but at the same time, not much has been going on. The bus that went from northern chile to la paz was interesting. it took about 8 hours and started at sea level peaking at around 4000 meters. thats a lot of altitude to cover in just 8 hours, enough so, apparently, that the girl sitting next to me got altitude sickness and was throwing up in a plastic bag for the the last 40 minutes. lovely. it was pretty hard on everyone else as well, by the end of the trip (which, by the way, was not air conditioned, and instead they decided to blow hot air on us for most of the way) most of the bus was groening in some sort of pain. i had a wicked headache and made a b-line for a hostel bed to try to sleep it off.

over the next couple days i met 2 hilarious british indian girls traveling with their white british friend, a scottish indian guy my age, and two friends traveling together from outside of london. this was the la paz group this time, as we had a blast. i guess the only problem would be that with nighlife as good (and cheap) as it is in la paz, it encourages becoming degenerate. and after a couple days you have seen everything to see, and soon the lifestyle becomes going out till very, very late (some would say early, as in the morning), sleeping half the day, eating, watching movies, and repeating. with a day off here and there. needless to say, its good to have escaped.

although a few days before we left, i learned that bolivia would be playing argentina for the world cup qualifiers. we got tickets (just 5 of us) for $15 (decent seats, too) and headed to the stadium on game day. and what a day it was. we all made guesses as to how bad argentina would beat bolivia. (argentina is 2nd from the top in south america, bolivia 2nd from bottom.) but the first goal went to bolivia, and soon we realized that something amazing was afoot. it must have been the altitude, because the final score was bolivia 6, argentina 1. it was the worst they have been beaten in a long, long time. and the fans went wild.

now i am in a place called cochabamba. tomorrow ill be catching a mini bus out to a small town called Villa Tunia, where there is a wildlife refuge. i have agreed to spend 2 weeks out there volunteering with sick and hurt endangered animals. internet is supposedly "occasionaly reliable," so it might be some time before another blog post comes along. but its sure to be an expierence.