Bolivia!: La Paz and Death Road Bike Ride

During the first week of December I took a trip to Bolivia with a group of 4 other Peace Corps friends of mine (all ladies!). We had an AMAZING trip and totally loved Bolivia. Some of the highlights included exploring the beautiful city of La Paz, doing a bike ride down the ¨death road¨, and taking a 3 day tour of the salt flats. 

I have literally been uploading photos for the past 1 hour and 20 minutes and the internet is SO slow and it also isn`t cheap to use internet in the middle of no-where-land!  I have given up hope of uploading the rest of the photos that I was planning on posting so for now I will just be posting photos of La Paz and the bike ride down the death road. In a few days I will try to upload the photos of the beautiful Salt Flats. 

La Paz was an incredible city and I totally fell in love with it right away. I even felt jealous that Bolivia gets to have such an awesome capital city while Peru is stuck with Lima! Sitting at around 3,600  meters, La Paz is the highest capital city in the world and it is surrounded by beautiful snow capped mountains with just stunning views from all points of the city! The city has a population of around 3 million and while parts of the city are very unorganized and chaotic, other parts are just lovely. The more touristy parts of the city are very colonial and classy. I would love to return to La Paz and just spend a few weeks there! 

To arrive to Bolivia from where I live I had to take the following means of transportation:

-8 hour bus from my site to Lima

-An hour long plane ride from Lima to Arequipa (thank gosh we found a good offer on plane tickets and were able to fly!)

-8 hour bus ride from Arequipa to Desaguadero, the border town between Peru and Bolivia

-2 hour mini bu

Border crossing!!

Driving into La Paz

The artisans markets in La Paz were awesome!

The Bolivian White House

A beautiful super colorful street

I just LOVED the Bolivan traditional dress

With our sweet Colombian friend that we met on the trip

The bike ride down the "death road" was a 4-5 hour bike ride through a very curvey, bumpy road. It started on a paved road and about 1/4 of the way through it cuts off to the "old" part of the road that is all paved. Riding down an unpaved, very bumpy dirt road on cheap bikes (because of our low Peace Corps Budget we could afford to rent the cheapest bikes!) is a bit hard on the body. So by the end of the bike ride we were all kind of in pain. But the views were stunning and it was totally worth it. The bike ride started in the high mountains at 4,800 meters and ends in the jungle at around 2,000 meters.

Starting out the bike ride

Our whole tour group

The starting views-beautiful!

Where it started to get jungly

Taking a photo on "Devil´s Corner" where many car/bus accidents have occured. 

Stay tuned for the next blog post of photos from the amazing Salt Flats!

Vacation to Arequipa

I recently returned to Huallanca after an amazing 12 day long vacation to Arequipa and Bolivia. It was an incredible trip and I have many wonderful photos and adventures to share. In this blog post, I will share photos of Arequipa and in a few days I will post another post with photos and stories from Bolivia :)

Arequipa is an amazing department in Southern Peru. There are currently a few Peace Corps Volunteers down there who we met up with to have a big Thanksgiving dinner. About 30 volunteers from all over Peru met up in Arequipa for our Thanksgiving vacation. Arequipa is a beautiful area and the capital city (also called Arequipa) is incredible! We of course had a Thanksgiving dinner but instead of cooking American food we decided to go to a Peruvian restaurant to eat traditional Arequipeña food. 

El volcan Misti 

The view from our hostel at sunset. 

Watching the sunset on top of our hostel. 

The main plaza at night. 

The main plaza during the day. 

American spirit :)

My Thanksgiving meal: A traditional Arequipeña dish called  "Rocotto Relleno" (stuffed peppers)

The funnest part of the trip was being reunited with my fellow volunteers and just getting to hang out and laugh together :)

After spending a few days in the city, we headed out to the Colca Valley where there are many cute little towns and also the famous Colca Canyon. I got to see two of my Peace Corps friend´s sites where they live and work and they were just adorable towns.

Here are some photos of adorable Chivay in the Colca Valley:

It´s a very touristy little town so they have a whole street full of fun statues that pertain to the Chivay culture and traditions :)

The sun setting on the mountains

Beautiful sunset!

One of my closest Peace Corps friends lives in a town called Cabanaconde which is where the start of the Colca Canyon hike is. The Colca Canyon is the deepest Canyon in the world and is a big attraction for international tourist. The hike is generally done in two days and one night. The first day is mostly down hill and you end in the bottom of the canyon at a beautiful oasis. We stayed at a cute little hostel in the oasis that had a refreshing pool that felt amazing to jump into after a hot and very sweaty day full of hiking. Hiking out the next day was definitely a good workout and a lot of fun :) We made it to the top exhausted but feeling great!

My dear friend Emily lives in the town where the start of the Colca Canyon is so she was a great tour guide for us :) Here she is with a local woman from her town. I LOVE the traditional Arequipan dress. 

Our lovely group of 8 ladies at the start of the hike. 

The view from the start of the hike 

Stopping for a snack break in the shade on the first day of the hike 

The end of the hike-we all had very dusty boots!

The oasis

Our cute little hostel at the oasis 

Enjoying a refreshing swim 

Made it to the top!!

Feelin´great :)

The same day we finished hiking the Colca Canyon, we headed to the border to start our Bolivia trip...but more on that in the next blog post :)

World Aids Day Fair

December 1st is International World Aids Day. My obstetris counterpart and I have known for months that we wanted to do some awareness events in honor of World Aids Day. We planned to do a street march and a small World Aids Day fair in the main plaza in our town. I even got some funding for a Peace Corps grant to buy some materials that we could use for our events :) Even though World Aids Day is on December 1st, we did our World Aids Day fair yesterday (on November 25th) about a week early because I am going on vacation and will not be in Huallanca for World Aids Day.

We planned to do a big World Aid´s day fair, but in 90% of the things you plan don´t turn out how you thought they would...So due to some complications, we were only able to get two tables/booths set up, but we made the most of what we could. I have about 20 student health promoters (see previous blog entry) who helped me inform and educate people at out World Aids Day fair. I was SO proud of them and loved to see them educating people about HIV/AIDS and correct condom use.

During our World Aids Day fair, we handed out brochures on HIV/AIDS education, red HIV/AIDS awareness ribbons for people to wear on their shirts, condoms along with correct condom use demonstrations (completely led by my students-I was SO proud!), dances, skits on HIV/AIDS, and we had a microphone and speaker that allowed us to give talks about HIV/AIDS education.

Like I keep saying, I was SO proud to see my students teaching people HIV/AIDS education. Knowing that they truly have learned from what I have taught them makes me so happy! It´s truly so rewarding for me to know that the work I am doing is actually making a small difference. Especially seeing the girls totally shine with knowledge that we brought to the Pasos Adelante conference (see previous blog entry) was really rewarding for me and my sitemate!

Here are some photos from our activities for World Aids Day!

A banner that I designed and bought with grant money for our World Aids Day events

Starting our street march 

Our street march

Our street march

Our street march- and yes that is a photo of a condom that says "use me!"

Our street march

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 A group of men learning the correct condom use from my students! I am so proud! 

A group of men learning the correct condom use from my students! I am so proud!

Performing a dance 

Performing a mini skit

World Aids day brochures, ribbons, and condoms. 

Some of my girls handing out World Aids Day ribbons 

They make me so proud :)

After a lot of hard work on all my projects, I am going on a long vacation! I will be heading to Arequipa (in southern Peru) and then to Bolivia! Photos to come upon my return!