Cochabamba

Buenas tardes from Cochabamba. Since we last wrote, we have been taking it easy. It would seem that we have finally travelled far enough from home to lose immunity to the common cold, and we have been slightly slowed. On Saturday we went to La Cancha, which is a large open-air market here in Cochabamba. Allegedly it is the largest in all of South America, but I am not even sure it is larger than the market in El Alto. That said, it was quite large, and slightly better organized with some set stalls and electricity. As usual, you can buy virtually everything from power tools to parts for your Commodore 64. Despite being at a fairly high altitude, we didn't have any trouble walking to La Cancha, Cochabamba is relatively flat, or we have just become accustomed to the altitude. Sunday morning we took the tourist bus, which the city provides at no cost. Basically a bus takes you around the city for an hour and a half and the tour guide talks a bit about the city. The strange part is that the bus stops in a neighborhood called El Pueblito and everybody gets off to walk around for 40 minutes. This neighborhood is supposedly where some important independence-related documents were signed, but otherwise is rather unimpressive. The bus tour did help us get a layout of the city in our minds and we did see some areas that we will check out again, like the Prado. We also passed through various parks and plazas.

That afternoon we took it easy as we were both starting to cough and sneeze a bit, we caught what two of the kids at our hotel had. Yesterday we also took it slow, just went to the local farmacia to get the Bolivian equivalent of dayquil and nyquil. Our colds have put a slight damper on our fooding, however we did manage to try some api, a sort of corn drink made from both regular corn and purple corn, served hot. It was quite good, and paired nicely with a very poofy cheese empanada. Of course, the standard fare of empanadas, salteñas, salchipapas, etc. continues.

This morning we went to a french cafe and had crepes for brunch before visiting Cristo de la Concordia, the highest and tallest Christ statue in the world (debatably, there is a statue in Poland that is taller when the base isn't counted). It is quite large and the holes in each piece are visible from when it was constructed. It is at the top of a little mountain, we we took the cable car (one of the seemingly less-sturdy cable cars of our voyage) up to the top.

This also provided some excellent views of the city which seems to have expanded to fill the valley.

Anyways, we grabbed some ice cream on the way home as it is quite warm here, and tomorrow the adventure will continue with some museums.