Hummusgirl's Blog

So my sister-in-law is from Bolivia.  She was born there and when she and my brother decided to get married, they decided to do so in Bolivia.  This was three years ago.  So my parents and I flew down with them to La Paz, for about three days.  It was extremely hilly there and our driver was pretty adept at not killing us.

We stayed in this fancy hotel that served Western style food.  But we did go to a couple markets that were kind of interesting.  The rainforest is where they grew tropical fruit like bananas, avocados, and the like so on one of our outings to some ruins near Lake Tikicaca, our guide and driver stopped at a market and got some avocados, pan (bread), and I think yogurt and maybe bananas too.  When we ate it near the ruins (with some very hungry dogs), I felt like I was living like a local.  Our driver even got some salt from someone because there are salt mines in Bolivia.  It felt like a pretty authentic meal to us.

When we got to Cochabamba, we then had a meal with Patricia’s family.  I think it consisted of rice and beans and definitely meat.  We had to drive to Patricia’s parents’ farm which was about two hours away.  At the farm (which is where the wedding was), they had pigs, guinea pigs, chickens, and llamas.  The wedding was a feast in that I think almost everything came from the farm.  Well maybe not, but the meat did and probably some of the vegetables did.

My parents and I continued on toward other cities while my brother and his wife went on their honeymoon.  The most memorable place we went (in terms of food) was the rain forest outside of Santa Cruz.  We were in a refuge way high in the mountains.  I flirted with the staff and took hikes with them, while a lot of the food they served us came from the farm on the grounds.  We had bananas, papayas, mangos and a bunch of other things like lettuce and tomatoes.  It was the fruit that made me think that fruit for dessert makes one appreciate fruit all the more.  I felt that in having those meals, how precious the rain forest was to the staff.  It certainly was a beautiful area.  The waterfalls were heavenly and there were all these dangling birds nests around that held some sort of exotic bird.

It was a once in a lifetime trip and I can remember some of the events in exact detail like throwing up at the wedding right across from Patricia’s parents and going to a centuries’ old church near Cochabamba where our van was blessed by a priest.  Yup, I hope to go back to South America someday.