Worshiping Pachamama

The first friday of the year is a special day in Andean culture...it's the day of celebrating Pachamama, the Mother Earth - in fact Pachamama is subject of various celebrations throughout the year, but the first friday of the year is one of the most important ones.
We started the evening at La Troje, a bar and cultural center a bit outside the city of Cochabamba. One of the rituals of these celebrations involves chicha, a traditional drink going back to the ancient Incas, made of fermented maize. With its beige-yellowish color it did not really look very moth-watering and the first sip absolutely confirmed this impression, but due to the traditional way of drinking chicha you can't avoid having more of it. Chicha is normally served in a huge mug, together with one or two smaller cups. One person fills the small cup dipping it into the mug, says 'saludo' to somebody else in the group, spills a few drops on the ground, as donation to Pachamama, and drinks up. Afterwards he refills the cup, offering it to the person he was saluting before and the whole procedure starts from the beginning...
Once you're offered chicha, refusing is not an option, so you can't avoid having more and more of it, and with each cup it actually gets better and better...
The drinking ritual was interrupted occasionally, when a band of around 10 drummers and panflutists entered the place and everybody started dancing. In the beginning I had some difficulties moving my stiff German hips to the traditional rhythms, but the chicha helped me solving these problems very quickly.
The evening ended downtown Cochabamba in "La pimienta", one of the hippest clubs in town, with somewhat more modern rhythms and melodies...

New year's eve and the Gasolinazo

For new year's eve, we were hesitating between a trip to Cuzco in Peru or to Copacabana at the shore of the lake Titicaca...we finally decided to go to Copacabana since it was only a 12h bus trip while the trip to Cuzco would have taken more than 20h. So we went buying the bus tickets on Tuesday 28th...8 hours to La Paz in a (hopefully) comfortable night bus and another 4 hours from La Paz to Copacabana.

Unfortunately president Evo Morales had announced the abrupt stop of the subsidies for gasoline on Christmas, resulting in an almost 100% increase of the gasoline prices. He was probably hoping that the people, being in calm and peaceful christmas mood, would not mind a lot. His plan seemed to work the first days after Christmas, on Wednesday 29th, however, the atmosphere on the streets changed and people started rioting and fighting with the police. Moreover the busdrivers all over the country went on strike, which meant that we had to bury our plans for new year's eve...

Instead of Copacabana, we finally went to "El Poncho", an eco restaurant, serving only organic food, situated in the hills outside Cochabamba with a wonderful view on the city...we really had a lot of fun, with bolivian music and dances all the night, and a shaman praying to Pachamama, the Mother Earth, and giving us good spirits for the new year.
At 6 a.m. they finally served Fricase as breakfast, a speciality from La Paz. It is a very spicy pork stew served with corn and Chuños - small, black, dehydrated potatoes. As I've been told, Fricase is a very popular hangover cure in Bolivia, often eaten early in the morning after a party. Afterwards the restaurant shuttle brought us back to the city from where we took a taxi home. As soon as we entered the taxi, the driver turned around telling us with a big smile on his face: "Hey folks, have you already heard heard? The Gasolinazo is over. The government will continue subsidizing gasoline and the prices will stay as low as they used to be..."

Bolivian Christmas

Cristo de la Concordia

Hills around Cochabamba

View from inside Cristo

I was a bit worried of spoiling Sandra's christmas celebrations, arriving christmas eve at 9 pm making her leave home and pick me up at the airport. But I was worrying for no reason, cause obviously Bolivian Christmas starts christmas eve at midnight. So we had dinner around 11 pm - pollo al horno, oven roasted chicken with corn and potatoes, yummy - and at the stroke of midnight we were wishing each other feliz navidad with a combination of hug and handshake…first a handshake, then a hug followed by a second handshake…it took a while until each of us had hug-handshaked everybody. Afterwards we had a glass of champagne and gave the presents…got a nice bolivian sweater from Sandra, which will be very useful for my trips to the Andes or to Patagonia :-)

I went to bed quickly after that, cause I was quite exhausted after my 24hr trip...

Christmas day started very calm, I slept until lunchtime, in the afternoon we went downtown for a walk…along Prado, a broad avenue and the main axis of the city center with lots of bars, cafes and restaurants, to Plaza Colon and further on to Plaza 14 de Septiembre with the beautiful cathedral from the 17th and early 18th century.

The day after I had the pleasure to try one of the regions specialities: Las Planchitas originales (siempre imitados, nunca igualados)…a blending of beef, chorizo, potatoes,eggs, onions and bananas, all fried together in a ca. 20 times 40 cm rectangular pan…really delicious…I would say a must for everybody visiting Cochabamba…

At the end of the christmas weekend, we made a little trip up to the "Cristo de la Concordia", a statue of Christ on top of the San Pedro hill, about 300m above the city of Cochabamba at an elevation of almost 3000m. With its height of 34 meters it is a few meters taller than its more famous brother in Rio de Janeiro. It used to be the tallest in the world, until November 2010, when the 36m tall "Pomnik Chrystusa Krola" was built in the polish city of Swiebodzin. From up there you really have a magnificent view on the city and the surrounding hills and mountains. The highest of them are around 5000 m high…I absolutely have to climb one of these mountains one day…