Peace out La Paz

Guy, Max and Eric

Nick's amazing pants

Eric, Chris, Mer, Nick

Cristian, Jacob, Morton, Eric, Mer

Martin, Victor, and Jan packing their bikes for their flights back to Europe


Our stay in La Paz is quickly coming to a close...I can't believe we've already been here for three weeks! We have been getting to know lots of great people here at the casa de ciclistas, and it has been truly lovely sharing meals, going out for drinks, and eating giant oreo cakes while playing cards until three in the morning. Thank you to all of you who have made this a cozy home away from home for us! Our stay began with Benoit, a Frenchman riding his bike around the world with the aid of a few plane rides. He is currently en route to the US from Lima and will be eating a jar of peanut butter for Eric when he gets there! Our friend Mia also arrived here, a special guest in the house of bike, motor and pedal, tourists. She was only here a couple of days, but we had a ton of fun together...even though she was subjected to a high percentage of bathroom humor given the state of our bowels at the time! Before leaving she gifted us a miniature roll of toilet paper, "For good digestive health," in the coming year. Next up were two Danes...Jacob and Morton. They had just recently begun their trip, and we were soooo jealous of the impeccable state of their gear! They proved to be super friendly, and we enjoyed having their company. Three guys from Slovakia were also here during that time - Jan, Victor, and Martin. They were good photo subjects and left us tons of canned and dried products for us to take with us to SW Bolivia where provisions are scarce. They also left us some delish tea of three varieties which we greatly appreciate as we are now religiously boiling tap water! Max, who we met in Puno, was our hero when he arrived here with our spokes from a friend in Seattle. Piset was awesome and managed to get us a whole new set of spokes so Eric could rebuild his rear wheel - you rock!! Max didn't get to stay long, but he cooked us an amazing meal for Cristian's birthday (the owner of the casa de ciclistas). Two great motorcycle tourists also made their way to the casa...Guy from Switzerland, and Estefan from France. Eric and I have decided that we really must learn French! Our friend Antonio from Peru also caught up with us, even though he took a different route. We went out to play pool together, eat popcorn and have some beer since the movie theater decided not to play the film we planned to see. "There's a 15 person minimum." We were the only people there, so... Last but not least were Chris and Nick, two highly entertaining Brits that showed us how to play President until the wee hours of the morning. On top of quoting Napoleon Dynamite for several days and reading aloud about the normalcy of Wife Spanking from a '60s marriage manual, we ate spaghetti, pancakes, and aforementioned cake, and had several cups of tea together. It was all around lovely!

In other news our 'work' has been keeping us rather busy. We currently have two part time jobs: volunteering at the school, and sprucing up the apartment. Working at the school is easier in the morning with the little kids because they are fresh and generally in good spirits. The afternoon is a bit more challenging as the kids have already been in school all day and are just wanting to play rather than do a second school day. In the house our most recent, and biggest, project has been refinishing the wood floors. Over the course of three days we scrubbed the filthy planks with steel wool and applied two fresh coats of wax by hand. We FINALLY finished this morning, but it looks great. Now we are on to the last phase of our stay here, which is to get all of our ducks in order. Buy food and some warm clothing, find gasoline for our camp stove, get other random odds and ends, and also finish building Eric's wheel.

In actual news, I hope the senate overturns what the house of reps has voted for. Nixing funding for AmeriCorps, Planned Parenthood, PBS and NPR? Seriously, how can we be doing this?

Another thing that made me sad here was a conversation that I had about what it was like to be female and travel through Peru by bicycle, particularly on the coast. Basically it sucked. Not only was it absolutely infuriating to be constantly subjected to insults and harrassment, both verbal and physical, but it was sad to hear from Peruvian women that change was not anywhere in sight. I was trying to express my anger and sadness both for myself and for the men and women stuck in their cultural hedgemony to a group of acquaintances last weekend and was astounded by the reactions I was met with. Rather than agree that change needs to happen in relation to misogyny and opression of women (and therefore men...gender roles here are quite strong and inflexible) everyone seemed to agree that I just needed to "accept reality," that my discontent was "in my head," and that what happened to us was somehow our fault or worsened because of "how we acted and reacted - or didn't." It was very sad indeed...amazing that people still choose to blame the oppressed for the oppressors' actions...and that some men are still unbelievably ignorant as to the lived experiences of women around the planet, both positive and negative. I'm rolling up my sleeves even further because this cause is going to span the rest of my life. Thank you to all the men and women I know that are dedicated, through various means, to making their communities better, stronger, safer and more open places for everyone to develop their selves and acheive their potential. Amen with sugar on top!