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Sunday I had what was likely the most quintessential “Bolivian” day I’ve had in a long time...
It started after church when we decided to head to the river to eat “typical” (traditional) Bolivian fare for lunch. Actually...it probably started in the morning when I forgot that we were having breakfast at church that day and got up at around the time we were supposed to be leaving. That meant showering/shaving/ironing my shirt in fifteen minutes...screaming out the door...buying doughnuts (yes, yes...I know) for our contribution to breakfast and arriving at church only ten minutes late.
Well...now that I think about it, that probably wasn’t so much “Bolivian” as it was just mostly just normal “Ken”...
Anyhow...returning to my original story...there’s a place here, down by the river, called “Las Cabanas”. It’s a strip of sandy dirt road that stretches for a kilometre or so and is packed on both sides with restaurants that serve traditional foods. It’s a fairly entertaining place. The restaurants are all thatched roofed and most of the food is cooked in an open-fire pit or barbeque. People cruise up and down the “strip” at about ten km/h checking out what restaurant they want to eat at (among other things). People park and put BIG speakers in their trunks and blast their music in an obvious competition with the guy in the next car over who’s doing the exact same thing. You can rent motorbikes or quads or horses...all of which are mostly old and kind of lame looking, although everyone seems to enjoy them. People just generally hang out and enjoy each other’s company. It always makes me feel like I’m up at the lake during the summer. It has that kind of feel.
As Sandro is our resident expert on all things traditionally Bolivian, we trusted him to choose the restaurant. Of course that meant a long drive at a very slow speed (as I mentioned) while he inspected each restaurant we passed. In my opinion? They’re all the same. But obviously that’s coming from, what past experience has told us, is an uninformed gringo. =) I’ve learned to (mostly) keep my mouth shut.
Finally we arrived at a restaurant that satisfied Sandro and in we went. The restaurants are all open-air and crowded with people. We found ourselves a table and shared the one menu we were given. It was a little hard to concentrate, what with the gigantic karioke machine blasting away on one side of us and the four little (mostly little) old men on the other side of us (in traditional Santa Cruz outfits) playing their two big drums, a flute and a shaker made out of a gourd. Granted the karioke machine had terrible speakers, but giving credit where credit is due...those old dudes held their own. They banged it out with the best of them.
I didn’t know most of the things on the menu...the chicken was about all I recognized. So the guys tried to explain some of the foods to me, although they really had problems with one dish in particular. Finally one of the guys gestured to my keys what were laying on the table, and pointed to my Canadian key tag.
“It’s that...” he said.
BEAVER?!
That did actually make my lunch choice a little easier.
The chicken it is, then.
I’m pretty sure it wasn’t actually beaver...but any animal that’s kind of like a beaver? Best avoided in my gringo opinion.
While we waited for the food to arrive, a continuous trail of people passed the table trying to sell us everything from candy and cigarettes to blow-up Pink Panthers on a stick. One Ayore (a indigenous people group here) lady with her baby on her hip, was selling necklaces. I like to support people who are trying to support themselves, so I agreed to buy one. I was leaning towards the ones with the big seeds on the end (cooler than they sound) until one of the guys explained that the one with the two inch square diamond of something blackish was made of turtle.
Seriously? Turtle?!
Then I would like the turtle one please ‘cause that’s just kind of cool.
I put it on and the guys all admired it. It’s kind of big and gangly...more something you’d wear to the beach, I think. Which...since that was more or less where I was...kind of worked.
Then lunch arrived. For future reference...remember that Sandro likes weird traditional food. Don’t sit next to him...
My chicken was good, but it paled in comparison to Andres’ plate. He got some kind of meat, and seriously? I would have eaten it even if it was beaver. It was amazing. No doubt...next time? That’s what I’m getting.
As we finished up, the old men music group started walking around and playing at individual tables. My thought that they were looking for tips was confirmed when they plopped their bowl down on the table and kept playing until we put something into it. I’m thinking of incorporating this idea into my next missionary fundraising trip home. What’d ya thing? I come over to your house, and then when it’s time to leave I put my bowl on your table and sit there and stare at you until you put something in it. =) It seemed to work like gang busters for these guys.
After lunch we drove out onto the sandbars along the river. This place is very cool. There are tons of people parked out on the sand...people are playing in the water and listening to music (loudly). It’s great. We drove way up the river and then when we found a big open spot did what any Canadian farm kid would do. We did some serious fish-tailing and sprayed big rooster tails of sand everywhere. The guys had never done that before (and trust me when I say my truck did a spectacular job). The guys were impressed, entertained and a little terrified...all at the same time. It was lots of fun.
After a couple of hours of them playing soccer on the sand and me (with my handy-dandy Superstore folding chair that I brought back from Canada) reading a book, we headed for home.
...only to get caught in the most ridiculous traffic jam ever. It was crazy. The road along the river is really just a dirt trail mostly, with trees filled in on both sides. In places it divides into two lanes with more trees in the middle. Some brilliant people decided to park in what was supposed to be the lane for people heading down to the river. As a result, the traffic (and there was a lot of it) was trying to pass each other in the other lane. Eventually that stopped working (it didn’t work great in the first place) and traffic backed up in both directions.
We just stopped. There was nothing anyone could do. Finally someone went looking for the owners of the vehicles that were stupidly parked. Meanwhile the rest of us sat there and made friends with everyone else who was stuck. It’s funny how shared frustration makes you best friends with people you’ve never met before. One guy stood at my window and complained the whole time to me. I didn’t understand 90% of what he was saying (he was annoyed and talking fast), so I just gave him a “For sure...” every few minutes with the occasional, “Exactly!” thrown in for good measure.
We were quite good buddies by the time the other owners returned.
Then in good Bolivian fashion everyone had to yell and argue for ten minutes with the guys who’d parked so stupidly, rather than just let them move their vehicles. While certainly cathartic, I was mostly just ready to go home. And THEN the lady in front of me decided she no longer wanted to go to the river and decided to turn her car around in the tiny little space in front of me. She came very close to blocking traffic all over again. I seriously would have just driven over her little car and not looked back. Fortunately she managed to get things worked out (after grinding her undercarriage over a big tree root), and we were on our way once again.
Eventually we made our way out of the whole area, and to tell you how popular this place is, there were cars backed up at the gate for at least a mile. I’m sure they were looking at least an hour or more before they even got in, much less found a restaurant.
All in all? Highly entertaining. I’m a little sunburnt and we were all ready for a nap when we got home...but fully worth every minute. I’m definitely taking my parents there when they come to visit. =)
And to end my “Bolivian” day? I was trying to help Sandro with his knee which he seemed to have wrenched playing soccer. I was opening one of those cold packs where you pop the bag inside the other bag, mix the two chemicals together and it’s instantly cold...and the outside bag decided to burst instead and sprayed the chemicals all over Sandro’s chest and legs. Turns out those chemicals are a little caustic and kind of burn...or so it seemed judging from Sandro’s reaction. No worries though. We got him rinsed off and fixed up in no time.
Come to think of it...again, that's probably not so much “Bolivian” as it is just “Ken”... =)
Sunday I had what was likely the most quintessential “Bolivian” day I’ve had in a long time...
It started after church when we decided to head to the river to eat “typical” (traditional) Bolivian fare for lunch. Actually...it probably started in the morning when I forgot that we were having breakfast at church that day and got up at around the time we were supposed to be leaving. That meant showering/shaving/ironing my shirt in fifteen minutes...screaming out the door...buying doughnuts (yes, yes...I know) for our contribution to breakfast and arriving at church only ten minutes late.
Well...now that I think about it, that probably wasn’t so much “Bolivian” as it was just mostly just normal “Ken”...
Anyhow...returning to my original story...there’s a place here, down by the river, called “Las Cabanas”. It’s a strip of sandy dirt road that stretches for a kilometre or so and is packed on both sides with restaurants that serve traditional foods. It’s a fairly entertaining place. The restaurants are all thatched roofed and most of the food is cooked in an open-fire pit or barbeque. People cruise up and down the “strip” at about ten km/h checking out what restaurant they want to eat at (among other things). People park and put BIG speakers in their trunks and blast their music in an obvious competition with the guy in the next car over who’s doing the exact same thing. You can rent motorbikes or quads or horses...all of which are mostly old and kind of lame looking, although everyone seems to enjoy them. People just generally hang out and enjoy each other’s company. It always makes me feel like I’m up at the lake during the summer. It has that kind of feel.
As Sandro is our resident expert on all things traditionally Bolivian, we trusted him to choose the restaurant. Of course that meant a long drive at a very slow speed (as I mentioned) while he inspected each restaurant we passed. In my opinion? They’re all the same. But obviously that’s coming from, what past experience has told us, is an uninformed gringo. =) I’ve learned to (mostly) keep my mouth shut.
Finally we arrived at a restaurant that satisfied Sandro and in we went. The restaurants are all open-air and crowded with people. We found ourselves a table and shared the one menu we were given. It was a little hard to concentrate, what with the gigantic karioke machine blasting away on one side of us and the four little (mostly little) old men on the other side of us (in traditional Santa Cruz outfits) playing their two big drums, a flute and a shaker made out of a gourd. Granted the karioke machine had terrible speakers, but giving credit where credit is due...those old dudes held their own. They banged it out with the best of them.
I didn’t know most of the things on the menu...the chicken was about all I recognized. So the guys tried to explain some of the foods to me, although they really had problems with one dish in particular. Finally one of the guys gestured to my keys what were laying on the table, and pointed to my Canadian key tag.
“It’s that...” he said.
BEAVER?!
That did actually make my lunch choice a little easier.
The chicken it is, then.
I’m pretty sure it wasn’t actually beaver...but any animal that’s kind of like a beaver? Best avoided in my gringo opinion.
While we waited for the food to arrive, a continuous trail of people passed the table trying to sell us everything from candy and cigarettes to blow-up Pink Panthers on a stick. One Ayore (a indigenous people group here) lady with her baby on her hip, was selling necklaces. I like to support people who are trying to support themselves, so I agreed to buy one. I was leaning towards the ones with the big seeds on the end (cooler than they sound) until one of the guys explained that the one with the two inch square diamond of something blackish was made of turtle.
Seriously? Turtle?!
Then I would like the turtle one please ‘cause that’s just kind of cool.
I put it on and the guys all admired it. It’s kind of big and gangly...more something you’d wear to the beach, I think. Which...since that was more or less where I was...kind of worked.
Then lunch arrived. For future reference...remember that Sandro likes weird traditional food. Don’t sit next to him...
My chicken was good, but it paled in comparison to Andres’ plate. He got some kind of meat, and seriously? I would have eaten it even if it was beaver. It was amazing. No doubt...next time? That’s what I’m getting.
As we finished up, the old men music group started walking around and playing at individual tables. My thought that they were looking for tips was confirmed when they plopped their bowl down on the table and kept playing until we put something into it. I’m thinking of incorporating this idea into my next missionary fundraising trip home. What’d ya thing? I come over to your house, and then when it’s time to leave I put my bowl on your table and sit there and stare at you until you put something in it. =) It seemed to work like gang busters for these guys.
After lunch we drove out onto the sandbars along the river. This place is very cool. There are tons of people parked out on the sand...people are playing in the water and listening to music (loudly). It’s great. We drove way up the river and then when we found a big open spot did what any Canadian farm kid would do. We did some serious fish-tailing and sprayed big rooster tails of sand everywhere. The guys had never done that before (and trust me when I say my truck did a spectacular job). The guys were impressed, entertained and a little terrified...all at the same time. It was lots of fun.
After a couple of hours of them playing soccer on the sand and me (with my handy-dandy Superstore folding chair that I brought back from Canada) reading a book, we headed for home.
...only to get caught in the most ridiculous traffic jam ever. It was crazy. The road along the river is really just a dirt trail mostly, with trees filled in on both sides. In places it divides into two lanes with more trees in the middle. Some brilliant people decided to park in what was supposed to be the lane for people heading down to the river. As a result, the traffic (and there was a lot of it) was trying to pass each other in the other lane. Eventually that stopped working (it didn’t work great in the first place) and traffic backed up in both directions.
We just stopped. There was nothing anyone could do. Finally someone went looking for the owners of the vehicles that were stupidly parked. Meanwhile the rest of us sat there and made friends with everyone else who was stuck. It’s funny how shared frustration makes you best friends with people you’ve never met before. One guy stood at my window and complained the whole time to me. I didn’t understand 90% of what he was saying (he was annoyed and talking fast), so I just gave him a “For sure...” every few minutes with the occasional, “Exactly!” thrown in for good measure.
We were quite good buddies by the time the other owners returned.
Then in good Bolivian fashion everyone had to yell and argue for ten minutes with the guys who’d parked so stupidly, rather than just let them move their vehicles. While certainly cathartic, I was mostly just ready to go home. And THEN the lady in front of me decided she no longer wanted to go to the river and decided to turn her car around in the tiny little space in front of me. She came very close to blocking traffic all over again. I seriously would have just driven over her little car and not looked back. Fortunately she managed to get things worked out (after grinding her undercarriage over a big tree root), and we were on our way once again.
Eventually we made our way out of the whole area, and to tell you how popular this place is, there were cars backed up at the gate for at least a mile. I’m sure they were looking at least an hour or more before they even got in, much less found a restaurant.
All in all? Highly entertaining. I’m a little sunburnt and we were all ready for a nap when we got home...but fully worth every minute. I’m definitely taking my parents there when they come to visit. =)
And to end my “Bolivian” day? I was trying to help Sandro with his knee which he seemed to have wrenched playing soccer. I was opening one of those cold packs where you pop the bag inside the other bag, mix the two chemicals together and it’s instantly cold...and the outside bag decided to burst instead and sprayed the chemicals all over Sandro’s chest and legs. Turns out those chemicals are a little caustic and kind of burn...or so it seemed judging from Sandro’s reaction. No worries though. We got him rinsed off and fixed up in no time.
Come to think of it...again, that's probably not so much “Bolivian” as it is just “Ken”... =)
5 comments:
that's hilarious! i know i've told you this before, but you are still my favorite blogger.
Ha ha...thanks Amy. You're mine, so I guess we're even... =)
You make me smile:)
Bryce...it was a seriously entertaining day... =)
Hahaha, I shouldn't have read this while sitting in a library, but it's the only place my internet really works. I miss you guys! you'll have to take me there when I visit... =p right... chau!
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