Captain's log: Stardate 17101.5
So today was a fun day! My plan was to take some more photos of the cool street art that is scattered everywhere around here. We also decided to go and check out the market. So off we went.\\
I found a whole bunch of amazing art and took some great pictures. It took a bit of wandering around, but then we found the market and explored that. There was loads of amazing stuff. Including 11 ducklings in a cardboard box, being tended to by 3 small girls (probably aged 4 or 5). Amy found a knitting / crotchet stall, and bought a pattern leaflet, a ball of yarn and a crotchet hook, for the grand total of 13 BOB (£1.30). We found the cake market, which had so much cake, it was insane. There were the most fantastic looking cakes everywhere, and baking equipment and decorations and ... I got a few photos of this. We bought a huge slice of cake for 3 BOB (30p) and got given the worlds smallest spoon to eat it with. I ended up using my face. It was awesome cake, but very messy. We then found more shoes than you've ever seen in your life, racks and racks of them. Then there was fruit and veg, we bought an aubergine, two tomatoes and an onion, for 8 BOB (80p), as well as two manky as hell looking bananas for 10p. We also found a little cafe-y thing in the market, and sat and drank a weird local beer that was 3.5% and yet as dark and as sweet as a belgian beer.
After a bit more wandering around, we decided to head back to the hostel. Unfortunately on the way out someone dropped a DVD in my path and then there were people squeezing past from all sides, a couple of seconds later, everyone had dispersed along with my phone :( So there went all the cool pictures I wanted to post.
We went back towards the hostel, stopping in at the tourist police, who told us that we needed to go to the FELCC (whatever that is). So we returned to the hostel, and asked one of the Bolivian staff members there who could speak English to accompany us. He agreed, but had an hour left to finish on his shift. I spent that time calling banks on skype, changing passwords and what not.Tedious, but better safe than sorry.
We got a taxi to the FELCC and proceeded to wander around this weird complex of police station like thing. After asking a bunch of people, finding a bunch of empty bear bottles in crates and a wheelbarrow in one of the buildings, we eventually found the right office, which had a hole in the ceiling and a bunch of mould around. With the help of the hostel dude (Abramo) we explained what had happened and attempted to answer his questions. All of which got written down in an A4 notebook. We were then issued with a piece of paper, and asked to deposit 10 BOB (£1) admin fees into the specified bank account and to come back on Monday, to get a form filled out and be provided with a certificate which I can send to the insurance company, who will probably require me to send the claim in, when I get back to the UK / after the policy has ended and then deny it based on some technicality (maybe I'm being pessimistic ...).
So now I have no phone, no camera, no alarm clock, no watch and no handy light weight internet device. I'm not too bothered by the loss of the phone. I'm mostly just worried that I'll spend the rest of my time here being overly paranoid and scared to go to the market (which is the best and cheapest place to buy all your groceries and pretty much everything), and also worried that this experience so early on after arriving here will make me not feel comfortable in the rest of the town. Oh well live and learn right. Other than that though, it's been a pretty interesting day.
I have to add that while this sucked, every other Bolivian person I've interacted with has been really nice and friendly and willing to chat despite my shocking Spanish. Amy commented on a market stall owners knitted hat and showed her the socks she had knitted and they chatted about that for a bit. We were encouraged to play with another stall owners small child, who enjoyed watching us juggle for a little bit etc... That's not to mention the hostel staff and their friends who are always happy to hang out and chat into the night. I feel like if we spend long enough here and get our Spanish up to speed, then it will be really easy to make some local friends.
I just stopped writing as the owner of the hostel invited us to go with him and a couple of Danish girls who are staying here too, up to a view point. We drove for about 15 minutes out of town at some point the road stopped being tarmac and turned into rubble. By the time we reached the top of this hill, we were feeling like a cocktail, pretty shaken. By the time we made it to the top it was pretty dark, and so all we could really see of the city was a sea of twinkling lights. It was pretty cool. We sat and chatted and drank a beer for about half an hour, then it got cold and windy, so we retreated back to the city, via a shop, where we bought three bottles of wine for 80 BOB (£8) in total.
Now the plan is to make some food, and drink some wine. Tomorrow I will need to have a chat with Worf my chief of security about new scanning procedures for the future.
I found a whole bunch of amazing art and took some great pictures. It took a bit of wandering around, but then we found the market and explored that. There was loads of amazing stuff. Including 11 ducklings in a cardboard box, being tended to by 3 small girls (probably aged 4 or 5). Amy found a knitting / crotchet stall, and bought a pattern leaflet, a ball of yarn and a crotchet hook, for the grand total of 13 BOB (£1.30). We found the cake market, which had so much cake, it was insane. There were the most fantastic looking cakes everywhere, and baking equipment and decorations and ... I got a few photos of this. We bought a huge slice of cake for 3 BOB (30p) and got given the worlds smallest spoon to eat it with. I ended up using my face. It was awesome cake, but very messy. We then found more shoes than you've ever seen in your life, racks and racks of them. Then there was fruit and veg, we bought an aubergine, two tomatoes and an onion, for 8 BOB (80p), as well as two manky as hell looking bananas for 10p. We also found a little cafe-y thing in the market, and sat and drank a weird local beer that was 3.5% and yet as dark and as sweet as a belgian beer.
After a bit more wandering around, we decided to head back to the hostel. Unfortunately on the way out someone dropped a DVD in my path and then there were people squeezing past from all sides, a couple of seconds later, everyone had dispersed along with my phone :( So there went all the cool pictures I wanted to post.
We went back towards the hostel, stopping in at the tourist police, who told us that we needed to go to the FELCC (whatever that is). So we returned to the hostel, and asked one of the Bolivian staff members there who could speak English to accompany us. He agreed, but had an hour left to finish on his shift. I spent that time calling banks on skype, changing passwords and what not.Tedious, but better safe than sorry.
We got a taxi to the FELCC and proceeded to wander around this weird complex of police station like thing. After asking a bunch of people, finding a bunch of empty bear bottles in crates and a wheelbarrow in one of the buildings, we eventually found the right office, which had a hole in the ceiling and a bunch of mould around. With the help of the hostel dude (Abramo) we explained what had happened and attempted to answer his questions. All of which got written down in an A4 notebook. We were then issued with a piece of paper, and asked to deposit 10 BOB (£1) admin fees into the specified bank account and to come back on Monday, to get a form filled out and be provided with a certificate which I can send to the insurance company, who will probably require me to send the claim in, when I get back to the UK / after the policy has ended and then deny it based on some technicality (maybe I'm being pessimistic ...).
So now I have no phone, no camera, no alarm clock, no watch and no handy light weight internet device. I'm not too bothered by the loss of the phone. I'm mostly just worried that I'll spend the rest of my time here being overly paranoid and scared to go to the market (which is the best and cheapest place to buy all your groceries and pretty much everything), and also worried that this experience so early on after arriving here will make me not feel comfortable in the rest of the town. Oh well live and learn right. Other than that though, it's been a pretty interesting day.
I have to add that while this sucked, every other Bolivian person I've interacted with has been really nice and friendly and willing to chat despite my shocking Spanish. Amy commented on a market stall owners knitted hat and showed her the socks she had knitted and they chatted about that for a bit. We were encouraged to play with another stall owners small child, who enjoyed watching us juggle for a little bit etc... That's not to mention the hostel staff and their friends who are always happy to hang out and chat into the night. I feel like if we spend long enough here and get our Spanish up to speed, then it will be really easy to make some local friends.
I just stopped writing as the owner of the hostel invited us to go with him and a couple of Danish girls who are staying here too, up to a view point. We drove for about 15 minutes out of town at some point the road stopped being tarmac and turned into rubble. By the time we reached the top of this hill, we were feeling like a cocktail, pretty shaken. By the time we made it to the top it was pretty dark, and so all we could really see of the city was a sea of twinkling lights. It was pretty cool. We sat and chatted and drank a beer for about half an hour, then it got cold and windy, so we retreated back to the city, via a shop, where we bought three bottles of wine for 80 BOB (£8) in total.
Now the plan is to make some food, and drink some wine. Tomorrow I will need to have a chat with Worf my chief of security about new scanning procedures for the future.
Captain's log supplemental
We made Arroz a la cubano (fry rice with bananas and tomatoes and onion) and drank a bottle of wine. Then Sergio (the hostel owner) turned up, and convinced me not to go to bed and to go drink wine by the fire in the hostel garden. I went for one glass, and ended up staying for about 2 hours, although the others didn't finish until about 0330. Amy and I ended up chatting with an Argentinian lady who is in Cochabamba for work. She didn't speak English, and so we had to use our Spanish. I managed pretty well, so that was good. I understood a fair bit, and got the rest with the help of Amy, and I managed to actually say some reasonably complicated things. It took a while but conversation happened, so that was really good fun.
I woke up at probably around 0530 again, and then lay there restlessly for what felt like forever thinking and dreaming about what time it was (because I couldn't check) finally I got up and checked on Amy's phone, it was 0800.
I had to post this today rather than last night, since the internet here stopped working just before I finished last night, and didn't seem to fix itself until this morning.
Not sure on plans for today, maybe go see the world's biggest or 2nd biggest (unclear) statue of Jeuus. I will have to try quite hard not to make sarcastic comments in earshot of locals, Alternatively one of the Danish girls informed me that Sergio (the owner (see Neal asher, owner series)) might take us to see some "nature" although we aren't too sure when he'll turn up, so we'll see what happens.
