Jesuits and Mennonites in Bolivia

Happy Thanksgiving to all! It´s been a wonderful year for Erin and I. We´re certainly thankful to have this opportunity to travel this year. However, we´re sad that finding turkey day food is next to impossible. We may be eating chicken and rice again. What kind of chicken, you ask? Well, our options include pan fried, deep friend, breaded and deep fried, as well as the perennial favorite, pounded breaded and pan fried. The sides will be soggy french fries and rice, all served with mayonnaise. Sweet potato pie, creamy green bean casserole, cheesy mashed potatoes, pumpkin pie, stuffing, turkey (or tofurkey) and cranberry cobbler do not sound appealing at all. Not at all. Ok, maybe a little. Alright, truth be told, right now, if someone asked, I´d probably sell a kidney for a meal like that. I hope you all enjoy being in the USA at a wonderful time like this. We miss you all a lot.

So, where have we been the last few days? It´s almost weeks now, I suppose. Erin wrote a long, involved blog about how we got from the jungle in Rurrenabaque to Santa Cruz. Unfortunately, we had some technical difficulties with the website and we couldn´t put it up. I´m sure the blog will be put up pretty soon, but not quite yet. We´re in a bit of a rush to try to get to some restaurant that serves better than average fried chicken. We´re stepping it up for the holiday, that´s right.

We arrived in Santa Cruz on the 21st, after a 2 day journey full of ups and downs, more heavily focused on the downs. We spent a day in recuperation, doing not too much on a lazy Sunday but enjoying it. We sat ourselves down at a bar and prepared to do nothing but cruise the internet, read some books, drink some coffee and tea, and then hit dinner and bed. Well, we managed for the first few hours, but only having one computer (being hogged by Erin) I got a little bored and ordered a drink. Then we had a couple, nothing crazy by any means, it was going to be a lazy day, after all. We talked with some family, and then, lo and behold, I was completely messed up. I´m sure it looked like I was absolutely plastered drunk out of my mind, but that certainly wasn´t the case. It seems that while we were on the phone, skyping with my dad, someone slipped a little something in my drink. We were heading out, trying to pay the bill and I couldn´t even really form words. There was some confusion while paying the bill, of which I remember nearly nothing. I have a vague recollection of Erin, thinking I had somehow gotten insanely drunk, extremely mad at me, dragging me through the streets (I couldn´t really walk) back to the hotel. Then, of course, I vomited all over our hotel room. Erin cleaned it all up while I layed passed out on the bed. (Love you!) She really saved me, it could have all gone much worse without her there to deal with the situation, thank goodness it was only me that was drugged. I woke up in the morning with an insane headache and wondering what happened to me. We couldn´t find the wallet, so we thought it had been pickpocketed, but when we were cleaning up the room to leave, we actually found it laying in the corner. It´s amazing nothing was stolen.

So the next day, Monday, was lost to recuperating from that ordeal through a 7-movie day (mostly romantic comedies, but a couple of serious dramas and indies thrown it). But the day after THAT, we finally left. We were planning on doing an overnight to the Jesuit area of Bolivia, but then looked at what we wanted to see and decided that two nights was appropriate instead of one. After all, it was a good 20 hours on a bus, so splitting that up into 3 days instead of 2 seemed like a good idea.

We took the train out to San Jose, where we had a quick dinner and night, then woke up a 5:30am to see the church and get on the road. A quick couple of pictures of the church, then on a bus to San Rafael. Three hours later, we hop off, grab some food (steak and eggs) for our starving bellies, take a look at the church and we´re ready to go again. But there´s no bus, of course, until later. But we need to get to Conception, which is a long way away. So we decide to hitch, since we´re travelling light. Twenty minute wait and we´re off with a former Bolivian congressman from the area. He´s nice enough to let us stop off in Santa Ana to take a look a the church. Click. Click.

Alright, let´s go. On to San Ignacio, where he leaves us. So we visit the church. Click. Click. Some more pictures, then it´s off to try to find our way to Conception, the last stop on the route. Nothing leaving until 7pm. Hmmm. It´s 2pm. What to do for five hours? Given how much conflicting information there was, however, we didn´t do much but search for the bus. We did manage to sit outside a pastry shop and down an apple pie (miniature), powdersugar Bavarian creme pie (medium size), a cheese roll, a tasteless chocolate cookie, and a pizza roll. That´s it. When I got up, there was a powder sugar silhouette of my sandals. Yum.

So, the 7pm bus comes, we join the crowd in the incredibly old bus as it bounces down an incredibly bad unpaved road, kind of similar to a bunch of kids singing "the wheels on the bus go round and round" on their way to camp, except that we´re all full grown adults grimacing at the poor cushions, hard seats, and knees pressed in the person in front of you. But, we made it. 11pm, we get in, hop on a couple of motos who take us to the hotel. Sleep. Wake up at 7am, grab some breakfast and then, clickity click click our way through the church. It was actually the best church of the circuit, I thought. Certainly had the best museum showing a lot of the renovation and how far it came. Then it was a 10:30am bus to Santa Cruz for a measly 5-6 hours, which brings us to now.

I tried to call my family, but the internet is too slow here. Sad.

Happy Thanksgiving to everyone. We miss you!