la paz and cochabamba...the saga continues

Not really...it´s been surprisingly uneventful after the craziness of the amazon. Other than fainting in la paz from the altitude and getting ill at lake titicaca, things have been pretty smooth.

It´s been pretty amazing...we visited the lake titicaca region around copacabana and the early pre-aymara ruins of tiahuanaco, which were really interesting. we had a very long bus ride (8 hours) to cochabamba and arrived starving about 11 pm...mauricio had ordered pizza, which we devoured in about 10 minutes flat. we´ve been blessed with comfy beds and hot showers for the entire trip, so we are in pretty good moods...

the last couple nights we have gone to incredible concerts of local folklorico--i actually stayed up until 2:30 am last night, a miracle. The bands were incredible, I got some CDs to share back in the states.

Today was a free day for the students, but I spent a lot of time grading quizzes, which they were none to happy about taking. Definitely the low point of their stay! We have a series of lectures tomorrow and then we are off to rural towns the next few days. Apparently there is a problem with the road to the amazon, so there is a chance we won´t get to go the amazon on friday, but we remain hopeful that we´ll get to chapare and parque machia for the last part of our trip. we have a lovely flight back to la paz saturday night and then we fly out of la paz on sunday morning early ( ie 6 am). It´s hard to believe I leave in just a week....just when I was getting settled in.

The group is great this year. Very diverse and definitely a bunch of troupers! It´s been quite an enjoyable experience. The program directors in Peru and Argentina also have study tours right now, so I¨m looking forward to comparing notes after we´re done!

Hope all is well in the U.S...I´m off to eat italian food with my host family.

Best,
Alicia