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…

Arriving in Cochabamba

I left California December 23rd. If everything would go well, I should arrive in Cochabamba christmas eve at 7:30 pm. LAN was more than an hour late from LAX to Lima, fortunately I had 4 hours for the transit so there was still enough time to get my connecting flight to La Paz. I arrived in La Paz the 24th at 2 pm. La Paz is, literally taken, a breathtaking city. At an elevation of 4000m, El Alto is one of the highest international airports in the world. Just after leaving the plane I already felt the difficulty to breath. Things got worse when I picked up my luggage. Carrying 60 kg at an altitude of 4000m is tough for someone who has spend most of the last 4 years sitting behind a desk. Fortunately the airport is really small, so it was just a short way to the new check-in for my connecting flight to Cochabamba, but nevertheless I felt like I had just finished a marathon. So I decided to follow the number one advice I got from many Bolivians, how to get along with the high altitude: I went to the next bar and ordered my first mate de coca, a herbal tea made from the leaves of the coca plant. I don't know if it was just the placebo effect, but i really had the impression that i felt better afterwards. The flight was almost 2 hours late, so I left La Paz after nightfall. The lights of La Paz by night are really magnificent. The elevation of the city varies from 3000m to more than 4000m, giving the lights a three dimensional perspectiv

The flight to Cochabamba only took 30 min, but these were among the most exciting flight minutes i have had. We were flying through a thunderstorm shaking us strongly with lighting in all directions. I was around 9 pm when I finally arrived in Cochabamba, where I spent christmas eve with Sandra and her family…

Prologue: 2 Weeks in California

To get prepared for Bolivia, I spent 2 weeks with my Bolivian flatmate Ariel and his family who is living in Carlsbad, a small town between San Diego and Los Angeles. I left just in time to escape the big snow storm all over europe…while waiting for my plane in Zurich, i saw that flights to Stuttgart, Paris and Frankfurt were already canceled. The trip went well, without any delays, even the guys at the migration at JFK in New York were very friendly, which was kind of surprising after all the bad stories I have heard.

The weather in California was comfortably warm and sunny, so i took the chance for an extended walk along the Carlsbad beach on my first day…it's hard to believe but this was really the first time i've been on the beach this year. Unfortunately the water was too cold for swimming…

For the next days, we decided to visit some of the various amusement parks around San Diego. First I went with Charlotte, a friend from Switzerland and Albertina, Ariel's mom, to Sea World, whose main attraction is 'Shamu' a killer whale show, named after one of the first orcas ever captured. It was really impressive seeing these 6 ton colossuses jumping through the air as if they were light as feathers. The day after, we visited the 'San Diego Wild Animal Park', a 7 km^2 safari park hosting around 400 different species. 

Afterwards Ariel, Charlotte and me headed north towards San Francisco. We stayed 4 days at the place of Maria, a Chilenian singer, and her boyfriend Vedran. The first two days, while Ariel hat to meet his thesis director in Stanford, Charlotte and me explored downtown San Francisco. When Ariel came back, we made a tour around the bay area. On the way back we took the pacific coast highway, which closely follows the coastline all the way from San Francisco down to Los Angeles.

Unfortunately it started raining heavily that day, so we could only guess how magnificent the view would be at good weather. After a few more days in Carlsbad and a short trip to Mexico, it was time to continue to the actual destination of my journey...