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…