Breakfast here starts at 7:30 AM, but because it’s Sunday, breakfast isn’t really served. We did, however, get hot chocolate. Still quite hungry we snacked on almonds from our snack bag and dreamed of food until it was lunch time. Later in the morning, Zolio, one of the professors, gave us a tour of the school with the students. They have three greenhouses, a guinea pig house (without guinea pigs), a small duck pen (without ducks), a chicken coop (without chickens) and ltons of little agricultural pockets of land wedged into the VERY steep slope. After our tour, we had an introduction and Q&A with the students. They seem really energetic and weren’t shy to ask us questions. They wanted to know about our culture, what kind of animals/crops we had, and how to say some English words. So in turn, we asked if they could teach us a few Quechua words (their indigenous language that remains from the Pre-Incan period…very different from Spanish). After the intro/Q&A, we went to work with our project. The students even joined and helped us! We actually got a lot of work done! Lunch starts at 12:15 PM, so we (including the students and professors) went to eat lunch. It’s kind of funny and cute how the students take turns peeking at us while they eat. The meals here are pretty substantial. It’s one of my favorite parts of the day. The students usually leave for the weekend, so they left after lunch. After meals, we have a time called “siesta” where we rest before working again. Second favorite part of the day. After a great nap, we went back to work. Again, we got a lot done! Hurray! We couldn’t really do much without the other group, so we hung around the school for the rest of the day waiting for them. This is when time really slowed down! It literally felt like we’ve been here for a week, but really it’s been less than 24 hours! We played soccer with one of the professors, but we couldn’t really play super competitively because of the altitude. The second group finally arrived at around 9:30 PM! It was a sweet reunion. It seemed like we haven’t seen them in weeks! We all caught up and called it a night. Overall, the project is progressing according to plan and we’re on schedule!

Side note: Wes says hello to his family! Christina says she’s alive! Alec says HI! Paul says “Hi Mom, hi Dad!...and my sisters too.” Laura says Hi to Mom, Dad, Bobbie Ann, and Sergio.

Kia enjoying breakfast

Some of us and some of the students

Connecting the polyethylene pipe to the tank from the professor's building

Dessert: mandarins! (Christina's silhouette)

Before picture of the tank

Tank at the end of the work day

Today was our big day! Our group was finally headed to CETHA to start what we came here for. Our day started out with meeting Damian, our main contact from CETHA. After reviewing the materials list with the group, Christina, Paul, and Kia accompanied Damian to buy most of the materials. However, because of space constraints, we had to split the travel two CETHA in two groups over the weekend. Christina, Wes, Alec, and Kia were in the first group. The trip from Cochabamba to CETHA was about six hours! So many road trips, however this road trip though had the best views! Winding through the mountains and valleys to make the 4000 foot ascent to CETHA resulted in some absolutely breathtaking views. However, we left pretty late, so we got caught in the dark. Luckily, it was a full moon, which made the road trip even more magical! Not only did we have a full moon, but the journey there was insane! We had to cross through riverbeds, jungle-like tunnels, and two mountains where your car was literally meandering at the edge of a cliff. The drive reminded me so much of Jurassic Park that I almost expected dinosaurs to jump out. A few students and professors greeted us when we arrived to CETHA and helped us unload. This community is so welcoming that it makes this project so much better!

Going over materials list

Buying materials. NC shout out!

Buying wood in the middle of nowhere

Packed and ready to head to CETHA!

Driving through a river on our way to CETHA

A quick note before we begin: We arrived at CETHA (our project site waaaayyyyy out in the boonies)! We don’t have internet access though for the next 10 days, but Ben and Christina are making a quick day trip to Cochabamba, so Ben will be able to put up these few posts as one but there won’t be any pictures.We´ll come back later and format everything but we figured an update would be good.

It was a bit of a slow morning for us all, but we headed out to the bus station for our 8 hour road trip to Cochabamba! I wish I could say more things about this bus ride, but we all pretty much slept the whole time. We rode on the top of a double decker bus and had the front seats, so it was like watching Bolivia as an IMAX movie. Quite exciting! Speaking of exciting, we saw LLAMAS! Packs of wild ones, up in the mountain. As we crossed the grand high plains of Bolivia (known here  as the Altiplano), we were struck by the vastness of the open spaces. Deserts would run for miles and miles, sprinkled with a few abandoned looking towns and water seemed quite scarce. It was obvious to see where rivers and streams would run through, but they were pretty much dried up. We arrived in Cochabamba a little late into the evening, went to our hostel, and ventured for some dinner before an early bedtime. Our day really was spent on the bus…

View from top of a double decker bus. Stuck in crazy traffic while leaving La Paz.

Altiplano

Bathroom stop along the Altiplano

After a good 12 hours of sleep, we we’re all ready to do some more exploring in La Paz. We woke up with the sound of fireworks exploding. We later realized it was a continuation of the miner’s protest that has been going on now for about 3 weeks. Apparently, very few stores open before 10AM, so we couldn’t really go to any of the markets. No worries, because Gabe was on his way to meet us for breakfast number 2. We ate saltañas, which are basically like hot beef pot pies, but you can eat them with your hands. Very delicious. And we drank Fanta! The Fanta here uses real sugar, so it has a different kind of pleasant sweetness to it. 

Walking in the Plaza de San Francisco

The empty markets

Una salteña de carne! Es muy deliciosa

Afterwards, we continued our city exploration and browsed through different vendors. Things we saw were textiles (super colorful, like the rainbow woven all together into pants, tapestry, wallets, and much more), charangas (small, high pitched guitars), and lots and lots of llama fetuses. Eeeks! We made our way over to a quaint colonial street called Calle Jaen. It was a lot less populated and was filled with artisan shops. Our main goal was to go to a folklore and ethnography museum, but it was closed at that time. Instead, we went to a museum showcasing the musical instruments of Bolivia. It was an absolute blast since we got to play with some of their instruments. The folklore and ethnography museum was a very nice and modern display of Bolivia’s history.

A local shop owner showing off her 100% alpaca textiles

Calle Jaen - A restored colonial era street with many artisan shops

Grabbing lunch on Calle Jaen

 A display of drums and Ben playing an interesting combination of washtub bass and bass drum

 Ben and Wes exploring the musical instrumet displays

The group posing in the museum´s premier Charanga concert hall

The main entrance to the ethnography museum, located in a restored colonial house

By this time, we were all pretty much exhausted and ready to sleep. After resting for a bit, Gabe brought us to a nice local Bolivian restaurant for dinner where we had lots of meat. The serving size was huge that it could feed three people rather than one! We finished off the day with a nice game of cards and rested for our road trip to Cochabamba the following morning.

Hi! We all made it to Bolivia safe and sound. First group (Team Alpha) came in on Tuesday and the second group (Team Beautiful) arrived on Wednesday. The hotel we´re staying at in La Paz has internet! What luck! It´s just a tad bit slow, so I´ll keep this post short and sweet with pictures to feast your eyes. :) Today is our last day in La Paz. Tomorrow, we will ride a bus to Cochabamba where we will meet up with Damian (our contact from CETHA) and pick up our supplies. And from that we will finally head to CETHA, Asanquiri. 

Plane view coming into La Paz

Yesterday was full of exploring! After a much needed nap for the second group, we walked around La Paz and toured Church of St. Frances and an art museum. We also used that time to try and adjust to the altitude. 13,000 ft of elevation can really get to you! Climbing two flights of stairs alone will leave you panting as if you ran a mini marathon! Doesn’t really help that La Paz is literally hills, hills, and more hills. Thank goodness for altitude sickness medicine. The city is so vibrant and full of life! The children here have the rosiest and chubbiest cheeks I have ever seen. Dogs are everywhere, but we can’t play with them. Pigeons also roam the street, but we don’t want to play with them anyways. Feisty little creatures. There are many colorful vendors and graffiti on every street, so your eyes never get bored! Same with your nose…lots of smells, both good and bad. The food in general is meat and starch with a wonderful array of spices, the first group even ate some llama steaks! One thing that you will always see around here is the Cholitas and their colorful attire.

Typical breakfast at our hotel: bread roll, toast, crackers, juice, coffee, and butter/jam

Church of St. Frances

Exploring La Paz

Awesome Spanish courtyard at an Art Museum

Strolling in La Paz

Feisty Pigeons

Cholitas!

After our walking adventures, Gabe’s mom met with us at our hotel where we rode with her back to her house. Gabe is a member of our EWB NCSU chapter who happens to live in Bolivia. So awesome!! Traffic/driving here is horrendous mainly because there are no traffic laws…laws are mainly suggestions. Pedestrians cross the roads as they please. They do, however, have overly cheerful and very sweet people in zebra suits that help pedestrians cross main roads. So we got to Gabe’s beautiful home where he and his family graciously hosted us. We ate terrific food till our stomach’s burst, played with their dogs, and had wonderful conversations. To say that the Hoskins are amazing is an understatement. Thank you Hoskin family!

La Paz is covered in artistic graffiti 

Happy Zebras

The guy in this taxi is wearing a UNC hoodie...Go Wolfpack!

Riding in a taxi on the way to Gabe's house

Kia playing with Lisa and Auggie

Us (minus Kia) and the Hoskin Family!

After our wonderful lunch with the Hoskins, Gabe drove us to the mountains to drop off his brother, David (he does downhill mountain biking…pretty extreme!). The view from the mountain was breathtaking! You could really see the layers of La Paz: the valley, altiplano, and the mountains. The drive up there was quite frightening though. Sharp turns with your car literally next to the edge of a cliff, definitely an adventure! The mountain had some pretty awesome rock formations, lots of stalagmites…they looked like fingers clawing at the side of the mountain! Gabe drove us back to our hotel and we all pretty much called it a night thinking it was late into the evening, but really it was 7:30 PM! Yea, we got about 12 hours of much needed sleep.

Gabe looking out into the mountains on his SUV

David downhill biking

Panoramic view of the mountain (Wes and Ben are the two shadow people)

Breathtaking view of the valley and altiplano

So a short post was false, but it was sweet! There’s just so much life in La Paz that I can’t condense it in a sentence or two. I haven’t even talked about Team Alpha’s first day here or today’s events! But it’s way past midnight and I need to catch some sleep before our journey to Cochabamba tomorrow morning.

And the first group (Paul, Christina, and Ben) is off flying to La Paz after a 7 hour layover in Miami! 

Happy Traveling :)

One/two days before our 2013 implementation departure! Excitement doesn't even describe how we're feeling!! We had to split into two groups since we couldn't all get on the same flight. The first group will be leaving Monday afternoon and the second group will be leaving Tuesday afternoon. 

Travel Team short bios: 

Paul Gannett - Sophomore in Materials Science. Paul is one of our safety officers and assessment/construction assistant.

Christina Lee - Graduate student in Environmental Engineering. Christina has been our communicator and will be our Spanish speaker/translator. 

Ben Lord - Graduated from Environmental Engineering. Project lead and oversaw all components of the trip.

Wes McNeely - Junior in Civil Engineering. Wes is in charge of the construction plan. 

Alec Pura - Senior in Biological & Agriculture Engineering. Alec will be the next project lead and will be in charge of assessing for future implementation projects. 

Laura Saleeby - Junior in Biological & Agriculture Engineering. Laura is also a safety officer and assessment/construction assistant. 

Kia Whittlesey - Project Mentor. As our mentor, Kia oversaw all of our designs and will be helping us with the design technicalities/construction. 

The goal for this implementation trip will be constructing a rainwater harvesting system out of an existing concrete tank. This will include putting in a pipe system to connect the roof to the tank, a diversion wall to redirect runoff from entering the tank, a tank lid, and sealing the tank with Sika Top Seal 107. A huge thank you to Sika for donating their product to us! 

We'll continue to give updates on this blog and through e-mails whenever we can!