Raleigh to Cochabamba (4-11-11)

My company, Principled Technologies, has a program that gives employees a seven-week paid sabbatical every seven years.  If the employee chooses to do something to help people for at least one week during the sabbatical, the company will pay $5,000 to that cause. I chose to spend two weeks in Cochabamba, Bolivia working with the Amistad Mission.  This blog is based on my journal entries from that trip. 

Susie and my daughter Becky had visited Amistad in 1997 and I had gone in 1999 with two of my children, Becky and Nathan.  Both trips had been very powerful experiences and we have been supporters of the ministry ever since.  My goal for this trip was to help out in the orphanage, learn some Spanish, and try to spend a couple weeks relaxing in a place very different from my normal world. 

On April 10, 2011, I left Raleigh on Sunday evening on a flight to Miami.  From there, I had a short layover before my long overnight flight to La Paz, Bolivia.  I gave in and paid (miles and dollars) for an upgrade to first class.  I did not sleep, but I did survive.  In La Paz, I stayed in the same plane for the flight to Santa Cruz.  I could feel the altitude (13,000 feet) a bit and felt the need to take deep breaths.  Customs in Santa Cruz was slow and expensive ($135 for a tourist visa), but went smoothly enough.  I then got to wait about five hours for my flight to Cochabamba.  

Cochabamba is a city nearing one million people.  It is in the Andes Mountains and is at an altitude of about 9,000 feet.  That altitude takes a little getting used to and is especially noticeable when you do something like go up stairs.  Cochabamba is sometimes referred to as the City of Eternal Spring.  Even though it was fall during my trip, it did feel like spring.  The dry air and cool evenings were a wonderful contrast to the weather back home.  

A woman met me in the Cochabamba airport.  She turned out to be Lila, the Director of Amistad in Bolivia.  She is about six feet tall and blond, but having been born in Cochabamba, considers herself Bolivian.  She drove me to La Morada in a manner that confirmed she is Bolivian!  La Morada is the retreat center owned by Amistad.  It includes decent accommodations with a shower that is shared by all the rooms on the floor.  One related annoyance is that in Bolivia you do not flush toilet paper.  Instead it goes into a waste basket next to the toilet.  Suffice to say, it is something I will be glad to not have to do when I get back to America! 

Doña Celia is the woman who runs La Morada.  She had a good lunch waiting for me.  I took a nap, read, ate dinner, read some more, and went to sleep.  This trip may indeed turn out to be relaxing!