We survived the Road of Death!

Hey all,
checking in from Bolivia! We are having a phenomenal time with such varied experiences in the last couple of weeks.. here´s a bit of an update

to get from la paz to the amazon we took the road of death.. SUCH a thrilling and incredible experience.. (check out photos on google) .. there were times when we were passing transport trucks on a road barely wide enough for us!! the wheel would still be on the road but the back part of the bus would be hanging over the edge.... every pore in my body was sweating from fear!! haha but now its a great experience and i would totally do it again.

the place we worked at is this incredible community called san miguel and they have an eco lodge/eco tourism enterprise called san miguel del bala... it is located in THE most beautiful picturesque location, right on the river (which eventuallly becomes the amazon river) nestled in majestic mountains covered in lush greens (so lush, and damp that our clothes never really dried and developed some seriously rank stenches after long days of work.. haha). The lodge was amazing.. we all stayed in a screened in common area with a bed for each of us.. we ate about 100 metres up from the river, learned some amazing and delicious recipes from the cooks we cooked with (we ground up rice to make rice flour for pan de arroz, got to make this delicious banana cream dessert (which Vicky says she is serving at her wedding) we had fresh grapefruit everyday right from the tree (SO SO SO delicious!!)). the food was amazing and plenty.. so much food every day!

we did some really awesome work with them too... hauled bags of rocks from the beach up about 100 stairs to our cabins for walkways they were building, also foraged in the forest for rocks for a wall near their water reserve, cleared paths through the rain forest (with machetes, of course!), carried dirt.. well more clay (doesn´t sound impressive but, boy, were we sweating) with the women in the village for the floor of the communal kitchen which they are building. We also spent lots of time playing with the kids in the community --- so wonderful.. they are just so adorable and its such an incredible and tight community. We got to pick lots of grapefruit, juice sugar cane, swim in the river (couple times), take some great boat rides, climb to a waterfall and through an incredible rock canyon (really narrow and curved from years of water flowing through) in bare feet! we saw a capybara, snake up close and personal (in the wild) lots of spiders (big and small "toxico" and not), saw a jaguar footprint(!!) heard and kind of saw 2 herds of wild amazonian boars, and saw some beautiful parrots and other birds (incredible and exotic songs as well).

So we are in Cochabamba right now... its a lovely and beautiful city. long and carsick bus ride to get here (took a sketchy plane from the amazon to la paz (no death road on the way back) and then took a 8 hour bus ride through the mountains.. so windey) we are working with an Australian couple who have taken in 30 + kids and have this incredible orphanage. so beautiful and the kids are great! The team has enjoyed having an english speaking contact and it´s great to be able to connect with the kids in a different way as most of them have learned some basic english too!

Lots of adventures, stories and photos with each day... looking forward to sharing them when we get home. So glad to hear of the other team´s exciting adventures and hope they are all finishing well.

That´s all for now.. hope to update again before we´re home.

elise