Distant Summits and Daily School

In the last few weeks I’ve at last been feeling the daily hours of Spanish study have been paying off. From the frustration of the early weeks where conversation was limited to describing the lounge furniture in the present tense only, I’m now feeling I can hold a reasonable conversation on topics beyond household furniture, even if the grammar isn’t quite right and the pace is still slow. Spanish is a great language and thankfully here in Bolivia it is spoken relatively gently and without too many quirky local expressions. I just hope that when I go to Peru or Ecuador I won’t find myself back at square one trying desperately to follow a strong local accent!



Two little breaks from life here have been to head to the hills, once by bus and once on foot. Overlooking Cochabamba is the 16,000ft Tunari peak. Five determined students from here set out to conquer this snow capped peak at 5.30 one Saturday morning. In spite of the assurances of our guide that we would reach the summit, my first doubts came early on when our bus came to a halt at most only about 500ft above the City. Cochabamba being at 8,500ft this left us around 7,000ft to climb in a day and a long trek through the foothills. We enjoyed a fabulous day in the hills and came reasonably close to the final ascent but given that it would be dark by 6.00pm and the pace at 15,000ft is painfully slow because of the thin air, we left the peak for another day … and a different route!



On our way up that day we passed an amazing little village and called in at the tiny school house. People there had a two hour walk down to the nearest place with roads and a shop… and a

steep three hour walk back. The harsh landscape clearly only just produced the bare minimum to live on and the only electricity in the area was produced by a solar panel at the school - probably enough to power a radio and a light bulb. I imagine life in that community has changed much in hundreds of years and whilst there was a basic education for those children, access to healthcare and any further education would be hard to imagine.



My other trip to the hills was to visit La Paz, the world’s highest capital at around 13,000ft. We took the overnight bus which laboured uphill for the entire eight hour journey arriving at dawn in the cold, oxygen deprived air of early morning La Paz. The city is a curious mix of modern skyscrapers which could let you believe you were in any large city in the world, if it weren’t for the poverty of ramshackle houses and buildings which are never far away, and the breathtaking mountains surrounding the city - especially the 21,000ft Illimani which dominates the skyline.

Hard to imagine that the half-way point in the course is now just a couple of weeks away now. Time’s flying by here - more news soon!