So this weekend was one big party. As I've mentioned, they like to party here, and this weekend was no exception. Festivities began on Friday and didn't stop til' Monday morning. Each day was a different reason to celebrate... Saturday was the "day of the Market" and parades and flowers lined every street. Live bands were set up around every corner too. I'm not sure what the other days were. But they have a day for everything here! Anyway, I took lots of pics as usual.






This is a panorama shot, click it to enlarge it:


My abuela doesn't like all the festivals, she says they are excuses to drink. And she's right! Everyday there are plenty of drunk people stumbling around, or dancing around, or more often fighting. Her store ran out of beer, every place did. I liked seeing women in their 60s and 70s downing bottle after bottle and dancing in the streets. Alot of people just end up passing out on the streets, like this guy:

I couldn't help but take the pic! He was laying in front of the place I make calls from... he was asking for it!

Sunday was the craziest of all the days. Besides all of the parading, they had set up carnival type games all along one street. After finding out I'm a terrible shot when it comes to shooting down cans, I played it up on the foosball tables, and also bought some raffle tickets. But this wasn't your regular raffle; instead of giving away junk prizes like toasters and what-not, they were giving away something far more tempting: puppies! The ticket salesmen held up dozens of tiny puppies, dressed in little outfits, and sold tickets for 2 pesos each (25 cents). I knew it wasn't a good idea to try and win a puppy... but I couldn't help myself. I bought ten tickets and gave half to my cousin. When it came time to announce the winning numbers, my cousin ended up winning a baby chicken and a puppy. He chose a husky, which go for 6-700 dollars in the U.S., we won it for $2.50. We gave away the baby chick, I figured my abuela might eventually try and cook it.
So we surprised my abuela with the pup, who promptly peed and poo'd everywhere in her house. We don't have a name for it yet, I suggested naming it "163" after the number that won it ;)



I take off from Bolivia this Saturday, and begin my backpacking adventures through Argentina, Bolivia and Peru the week after. I want to see Machu Picchu, Iguazu falls, Lake Titicaca and of course, lounge on the beach in Buenos Aires and Mar del Plata. But we'll see how many of these places I actually make it to... I might just get lazy and not want to leave the beach...

Tattoo-less Chris

Last weekend I hit up La Paz again. My whole reason for going wasn’t to experience the sites or culture, but to finally get the tattoo I’ve been wanting fooorever now. There is a good tattoo artist there so I made a trip of it (peckatattoo.com). I brought along my cousin Adrian and my abuela too. Bring along my abuela probably wasn’t the best idea… she didn’t seem to get that my cousin and I were heading to Bolivia purely to get tattoos. Instead my abuela would wake up at 5am and want to go sight-seeing… no matter if it was still dark out or not. This was made harder by the fact that Adrian and I enjoyed drinks from room service and watching TV til late at night.
Anyway, turns out that the Friday we went was another Bolivian holiday (there is one every week!), so the tattoo place was closed. Then the Saturday we went, we realized that the place is only open Monday thru Friday… so no tattoos. Instead, we indulged abuela and went to see the sights… all of which were closed. We ended up heading an hour outside of La Paz to visit Tiwanaku, which was an important spiritual centre for the Incan people. I read a bit about it before going to La Paz, and was pretty excited to go. Um, unfortunately, the place was a bit of a let-down. They haven’t finished excavating the site. There really wasn’t much to see. Though my abuela made it more entertaining by trying to get me into the site for a discount. They charge more for foreigners to enter, a lot more, so my abuela tried to say that we were all from Oruro and were Bolivian citizens. The fact that I tower above my abuela and cousin, and that I don’t have a Bolivian ID or speak fluent Spanish made the story a bit hard to believe, and I had to end up paying 8 times what they paid. Anyways, here a few pics I took of the few things that were there to take pics of.



My stay in Bolivia is quickly coming to and end, and when my time is up here I’ll be heading to Germany for Christmas. But I’ve decided that I’ll be staying there longer than originally intended. I realized that what better place to continue my globe trotting than in the center of Europe. It will also give me a chance to spend some time with my folks and also pursue some goals I have in mind. So if anyone wants to visit Europe, you have a friend in Germany!