This is my first week in Bolivia, summed up into 10 points
1. We took a 28-hour bus ride on death road – the deadliest road in the world. The scariest, most eventful, most beautiful road trip of my life!
2. Rurrenabaque is GORGEOUS! It has a river on one side and mountains on two sides. I can’t wait to explore it more!
3. Our host family is AMAZING! They are so sweet and funny and just so much fun! They also make us a delicious breakfast of Bolivian foods every morning.
4. Our ministry contact is a kindhearted 75-year-old man from the states. His ministry is a shelter for orphaned teenage boys and he is setting up a radio and tv show. We’re mainly helping him redo the ministry site by doing yard work, painting, and other manual labor projects.
5. The oldest son of our host family and the boys at the shelter have become some of our good friends. We’ve watched movies, played card games, played sports together, and just hung out. They are very protective over us and don’t let us go anywhere alone or buy anything without them so we don’t get ripped off.
6. Most of our new friends don’t speak English. A few know a little English and we know a little Spanish. We still are able to talk plenty and we teach each other our languages. We’ve had some very funny slip-ups and misunderstandings because of the language barrier but we have really gotten to know each other anyway. It’s actually quite amazing how quickly you can build relationships with people. We’ve all admitted we’ll probably cry when this month is over and we have to say goodbye.
7. The aunt of our host family teaches zumba and she let us do one of her classes for free. We got to do some Latin dances like the flamenco, the meringue, and salsa. It was so much fun and quite the workout!
8. The only strange food I’ve tried so far were these little fried fish. They looked like larger minnows and still had their heads and fins and everything (I’ll post a pic when I can). They weren’t too bad though. Just really salty.
9. The rest of the food has been DELICIOUS! We’ve had:
- Bolivian pancakes (basically crepes) with homemade syrup (SO GOOD! I got the recipe),
- Fritas da Queso (batter with cheese that’s fried with syrup (tastes similar to beignets from NOLA)
- Sonso (fried mashed up potatoes and cheese)
- Empanadas
- AMAZING homemade strawberry jam! The BEST ever! (I’m trying to get that recipe)
10. Our ministry host has some great trips planned. Two trips to indigenous groups living in the jungle, a hike up a mountain to a camp sight, another possible hike up a mountain to a beautiful cross, and a trip to the pampas which is the touristy thing to do here.
BONUS: I have officially seen a tarantula up close…yes, it is terrifying That’s about as summed up as I can make it. This has been nothing short of amazing so far and I can’t wait to see how the rest of the month goes!
