It has been a crazy week in Bolivia but so good! We are living in a little town 45 minutes outside of La Paz by the name of El Alto. It definitely lives up to it’s name of “The Tall” by exceeding La Paz in Altitude. I am not sure the difference, but the locals say it is much higher. There is a place about 4 blocks walking distance from our house where you can look over the entire city of La Paz! Filling a valley and built into the surrounding cliffs, it is the most beautifully situated city I have ever seen.
I feel like World Race royalty this month because we are living in a house, have hot showers, beds and dressers for our clothes! The temperature is extremely different than the last two months. In some of the rooms you can see your breath and if you breathe on the bathroom mirror it will fog up!
The first night we were here, I took one of my teammates to a local clinic due to excessive vomiting and dehydration. Talk about crazy third-world country experience! Another girl from the other team came with us as a translator and none of us were feeling good, due to altitude. As we slowly walked up the steps we noticed drops of blood leading up the stairs and continued to follow them into the clinic and down the hall. Carnaval (which is the big South American party before Lent) was happening and it looked as if it was the aftermath of a fiesta with balloons and streamers all over and many had fallen on the floor. As the girls went into one of the rooms, I sat outside with our driver Geronimo. They finally prescribed my teammate some medication and then placed her on oxygen for 30 mins. Meanwhile, I was doing everything in my power not to throw up, myself. All the sudden I asked Geronimo where the bathroom was, but as soon as he disappeared down the hall and around the corner, I couldn’t hold it in anymore! All the contents of my stomach projected across the floor in the waiting area. Fortunately I was sitting there by myself. Geronimo and the nurse came running down the hall and sweet Geronimo held me and my jacket back as I continued not being able to hold anything in. Poor man, he was in a clinic at 10pm at night after driving us around all day and now was comforting a vomiting Americana whom he couldn’t communicate with! The nurse finally came back with a bucket but it was too late! As I was sitting there in a strange country all by myself with a Bolivian man I had only met hours before, vomiting my guts out I wanted to laugh about how crazy this was! We stayed about another 1/2 hour and no one cleaned it up! The nurse was apparently busy cleaning up a room that was full of blood from a patient earlier (thus the pleasant trail of blood). At 10:30pm, $25 later, an empty stomach, and a much better teammate, our sad little party left the clinic. It makes for a great story, but I am so very grateful we are all feeling better and didn’t have to go back!
Welcome to Bolivia!
