3. Visa Issues? No Sweat!

Book 1: Journey to the Orphanage
     Chapter 1: La Paz
          Story 1:Visa Issues? No Sweat!

The view showed us by our taxi driver with monstrous Mt. Illumani

Bolivia is beautiful! Not to mention the people here are so interesting, friendly, and extremely helpful. Also, soccer is HUGE down here! What's not to like! We have been in La Paz for 4 days so far and are loving every moment. It is fortunate that we enjoy the big cities--La Paz and Santa Cruz--because we will enjoy them for at least one more week even though we should currently be at the orphanage...here's why.

Before leaving for Bolivia, we obtained our 30 day visas from the Bolivian Consulate. We were then advised to purchase a Temporary Residency Visa from the La Paz airport--an estimated one hour process...yeah, right! First off, the airport does not process visas. Secondly, it does not take one hour. The entire process takes between 10 to 30 days!!! After desperately seeking answers and help, we were told to fly to Santa Cruz (again) and to contact Gospel Ministries International, so that they could assist us with the paperwork process. They finally called us this morning at 7:23 a.m., and a very pleasant lady explained what we should do once we land and who we should contact. It is so nice to have someone in Bolivia that cares for us and can help us get through this dilemma. But hey, solving this problem has been one adventure after another. I'm not complaining; it's like having a constant adrenaline rush.

In the meantime, while we have been resolving our visa issues, we most certainly have been enjoying the sights and sounds and people and TASTES (yummo!) of this awesome, culturally rich country.

Works of art by Dumbo's
(I had two slices!)

Let's start with the best part: the tastes. The food here is phenomenal! If you know me well enough, this is a BIG deal! The first taste of Bolivia I had experienced was in the Santa Cruz airport (where we had to first land before we took another flight to La Paz) was a Pastry stuffed with palmito (heart of palm). We have also enjoyed delicious cream of asparagus and corn soups, potatoes with peanut sauce on top, Bolivian gelato at Dumbo's (that's right, there is even a picture of the little Disney elephant with large ears as their mascot), and cakes that are closer to works of art than consumable food. These cakes manage to outdo even the Cheesecake Factory, in my opinion.

Chad chowing down on deliciousness at the hotel restaraunt
(Fetuccini alfredo, cream soups, potatoes with peanut sauce)

Sounds. As I currently type this, I am constantly bombarded with the incessant beeping of car horns and continuous car alarms of the streets of La Paz, even though I am five floors above the city. Drivers will honk their horns for no reason at all and are not afraid to beep 10 times within 5 seconds. Almost as if they are communicating with other drivers via morse code. This is a good thing: it is much easier to hear them as they attempt to run you down when you try to cross the chaotic streets. The music here is so colorful; from the instrumental charango music (an instrument like a ukulele with 5 sets of 2 strings), to the hispanic pop, to the outdated American hits. As expected, U.S. artists are popular in the city. Once he discovered we were American, our taxi driver from the airport to the hotel energetically popped in a bootlegged (which most music and movies are) Miley Cyrus cd as if she was our favorite. He has to be the best taxi driver ever.

View of the stadium and El Alto from our hotel

One of the plant arrangements in the square

Sights. Breathtaking! I have seen photos of La Paz--not even close. As we descended into the La Paz airport, we discovered that the 2-mile high city was breathtaking in two ways. One, it is difficult to breathe. Two, we had barely started to descend from our 30,000 ft. elevation when we saw Mt. Illumani "attack" us from below at 21,000 ft. This triple peaked mountain is visible wherever you are. La Paz itself is surrounded by another large city above it on the cliff faces known as El Alto. Both cities have more than 700,000 people each! We can see gorgeous El Alto from our hotel room. The locals here are also a sight to behold. The traditional women around here are known as cholas and are decorated with solid colored dresses with shawls and a bowler hat--my favorite! We plan on journeying to Lake Titicaca and Tiwanaku one day, but have been busy visiting the markets, admiring the world's highest-up soccer stadium (imagine the unfair advantage the acclimated home teams have!), and enjoying the gardens of the central squares.

The Irish and Ice Cream at Dumbo's

People. They are fantastic! There simple lives seem to cause them to exude friendliness. They are always to willing to help us (their seemingly dumb and helpless American customers). All our hotel staff are extremely helpful, but we have developed a "love affair" with Stanley, the english-speaking receptionist. He helps us all the time; especially with our language barrier. We always be sure to greet him with an overly cheerful "Stanley!!!!!". We also fellowshipped with Alfonso on Sabbath. It was a God-send to meet him on our walk to the local Adventist church. He is a 19-year old, piano-gifted, Mexican-born Bolivian resident that moved to La Paz a month ago to live by himself in a small apartment. We enjoyed sitting with him in the balcony of the church, and we invited him to eat with us at our hotel. Chad and I love to communicate in Spanish to the locals with our broken, yet surprisingly adequate Spanish. However, meeting an English speaker is always a treat, and we automatically associate them as family. We met young, african-american missionary at the airport, and Paul and David--two young men from Ireland who are backpacking South America in 2 months. We met them at Dumbo's of course!

So we had our visa issues--NO SWEAT. There is plenty to do in the mean time. Our adventures now begin a new chapter-Santa Cruz. We now head from the frigid city of La Paz, with current temperatures between 28 and 64 degrees F, to the tropical city of Santa Cruz, between 68 and 104 degrees! I anticipate our future adventures eagerly.

**Keep adventurizing!...I know I will!**

-Eric

P.S.-I plan on keeping my blogs shorter in the future, but there was so much I wanted to share. Not to mention I procrastinated a bit... :)