Final Bolivia Post

So this is my last post from Bolivia. I'll leave the hotel at 3:30(!) tomorrow morning to catch my plane and start hopping across the world to get home. (My flight schedule is ridiculous.)

It's been an amazing visit, and the people in World Vision's Bolivia office were hospitable and kind and incredibly good at what they do. I was impressed. Below are a few final photos.

Below: I wanted to get some pics to show the traditional garb of Bolivian women. The woman below has her baby tied to her back.


Below: I love this lady's hat. Most of the older women were wearing hats, and many in La Paz wore this style, though I saw older women wearing all kinds of hats, including broad-brimmed straw hats and ski caps.

Below: Here's another lady with the bowler-style hat and colorful blanket pack.


Below: This isn't the best quality pic, but I wanted to show the long braids that many women wear here. They usually tie the braids together at the bottom with yard that has tassels or beads on the ends. You can't see some women's braids b/c their packs are on top of their hair.

Below: Just another lady walking through a parking lot.

Below: Here we are in Cochabamba, where we flew today just for a day. We visited a site that was destroyed by floods and talked to people there about the emergency logistics help they received from World Vision and their hopes to rebuild. It was humbling and sad; the people were so gracious to us. But it was cool to hear good things about WV from a community that had been helped.

Below: Here we are still talking to a woman from the flooded community.


Below: Here I am smiling with a rock to bring back my mom. She likes to have a rock from every country I've visited. This one was lying in a doorway of one of the ruined homes.
Below: Here is a final shot of the fab four: me, Analia, Jen, and Mary Cruz. Analia and Mary Cruz are such professionals, but they are also warm and loads of fun. I'm hoping they will come to Seattle sometime so that I can show them around! :-)

Sculptures in Oruro

On Tuesday we drove to Oruro, a town that is known for its carnival celebrations. There are some really cool huge sculptures along the road as you drive into town, many having to do with carnival and some to do with mining, which I understand to be another thing associated with Bolivia in general and Oruro in particular. Enjoy!


Below: This sculpture is a carnival musician.


Below: This is an angelic warrior, the counterpart to the devil figure that I wasn't quite fast enough to catch a photo of.


Below: I think this is a carnival dancer.


Below: I don't remember what they told me this guy was, but he sure is interesting.


Below: Here is the hat guy up close.


Below: I don't really know what this guy is either, and he's a little blurry, but you can still see him.


Below: Here I'm pointing to a frog. Enjoy, granny, this photo is for you!


Below: Here is an area with a bunch of symbols relevant to mining. It's miner hat and things like ants and a scary dragon representing the scary things underground.


Below: Here's the team that went to Oruro: Jordan who translated, Herman who drove us, me, Jen, and Mary Cruz, who is on the humanitarian emergency assistance team.


Below: Oh, no!! A giant ant is eating Jordan's leg!


Below: A close-up of the dragon head. Scary...


Below: Heeeeelp! I'm cowering from the dragon.

Bolivian Countryside

Below are some photos that I took out the car window on a drive from La Paz to Oruro. The countryside is so gorgeous, so I wanted you guys to all see it. Enjoy!

Sights in La Paz, Bolivia

Below are some photos I shot on Sunday when Jen and I were sightseeing and acclimating. Enjoy!

Below: Here you can see how mountainous Bolivia is and see how the buildings cover the hills of the city.


Below: This man sold me a necklace for mama. You can see him here and his vendor stall on the street near the San Francisco church.

Below: This is a shot of the outside of the church; you can see all the intricate carving on the pillars.


Below: Here you can get a better feel for the church itself. Above the dark wooden doors, you can barely see Christ with his arms open, welcoming people in.

Below: And here is the inevitable shot of me posing in front of a landmark. Landmarks are nice, but I'm one of those travelers who likes a shot of myself with the landmark...

Below: Here's a shot of a shop near the church. See the Coca Cola sign? I got a good shot of that for your teacher friend, mama!


Below: As we walked up the hill, we turned and saw this. I thought it was a beautiful site: the blue sky, the church, the hill with the buildings.


Below: We took a wrong turn at one point and found ourselves on this street. Women were sitting in the middle of the street with produce spread out on blankets and tarps. You can see the traditional way women dress in this photo: full, long skirt; shawl; and bowler hat. Most women have two long braids down their backs to their waists, tied together with yarn that has tassels on the ends.


Below: Here I am with a lady who sold me some Christmas presents for the fam. So fun!

That's all for now. Today I just interviewed people all day, with one hardworking gal coming to our hotel this evening for an interview, too. Tomorrow is another big day with a car trip out to a couple of field offices. We leave at 7 a.m., so I'd better head off to bed. Goodnight!

Safely in Bolivia

Hey, gang, I'm safely here in Bolivia. My flights were uneventful, and I even had an aisle seat next to an empty middle seat for the longest leg. We arrived here at 5 a.m., and I'm going to try to stay awake all day so I can sleep through the night. We have a really packed schedule for the rest of the trip, so I'm going to try to relax and see a little of the city today. I'm here in the hotel, which is very nice, catching up on email, etc. and then will head out this afternoon. At 2 p.m. Jen (the World Vision person who is also traveling on this project) and I will meet in the lobby and catch a cab to a famous church called San Francisco; we'll walk around there a while and catch a very eary dinner and then head back here and crash. I'll have my camera and will take pics of the church (if allowed) and some of the sites.

The drive from the airport to the hotel was beautiful. It was about a 40-minute drive. The airport is at really high altitude, and the road to the hotel winds around a mountain down past a valley filed with greenery and red/pink buildings made of brick, with even taller mountains with snow in the background. When we started the drive, we were close to cloud level, and it was beautiful to see that valley of greenery and red/pink buildings as we drove down through wispy clouds. Along the road we saw people walking, and it seemed that the generational differences really affected what people wear. Young women were in jeans and coats. Older women were in long loose skirts, colorful shawls, and those hats that kind of look like bowler hats that you've probably seen in pics of traditional Bolivian garb. Whereas in Mozambique you see a lot of women walking with babies tied to their backs with colorful fabric and loads of things they are carrying balanced on their heads, here you see women strapping loads of things to their backs with colorful fabric and babies clasped to the chest. I'll try to get some nice pics from the taxi this afternoon.

Okay, signing off now. More from me later!

Last of my Istanbul Photos

When I checked into the cheaper hotel where I stayed the second and third nights, the guy at the desk told me that he was going off duty immediately and would show me around if I wanted. I thought that was so nice. :-) So he walked me to a park that he said was a zoo when he was a little boy. The first couple of photos below are from the park.

Below: Me, smiling in the park by all the flowers. Here's another "Bec and flowers" pic for mama. Enjoy!

Below: Lovely flowers in the park behind my hotel.

Below: This is surely an ancient wall, but I'm not sure what it used to be... You could see it looking down from a hill in the park.

Below: This is what is called the "new mosque." The guide book I was reading said "only in Istanbul would a 400 year old mosque be the new mosque." I thought that was so cool.

Below: Walking to the grand bazaar, I walked through a district with nothing but fabric shops and sewing notions. I tried to resist, but it just wasn't possible. :) I went into a fabric shop, and the lady led me up some twisty-winding stairs to this top room just packed with fabric, most of it upolstery fabric. I bought a couple of half-meters for my cousin Allison, who makes super-cute bags. Yay!

Below: This is one of the entrances to the grand bazaar, a vast and overwhelming shopping experience.

Below: Nuts! Nuts for sale at the spice market.

Below: Yummm. Olives of every type for sale at the spice market.

Below: This lantern shop was so pretty. I just had to take a photo. The shop keeper was super nice and offered to take a photo of me.

Below: Lanterns and me. I was so tempted to buy, but, fortunately, my taste is excellent. I just couldn't afford the ones I liked.

Below: The outside of the Hagia Sophia. It started as a Christian church in 547 A.D. but then became a mosque. In the 1930s, the Turkish government made it into a museum.

Below: The next several photos are of the inside of the Hagia Sophia. Tony said he studied it in art history class. It's incredible.

Below: Here I am waving goodbye to Istanbul. See you soon, I hope!!