Okay...a bit of a backstory to start with.
Oh...and by the way...I'm not going to appologize for not having posted for so long ...that stuff just gets old after awhile...
So, backstory It's been hot and dry here. Really hot. And really dry. Also, we have a team here. It's a group of six Americans who are on the third leg of a year long round the world missions trip. They're with us for a month. They're a great group and we're enjoying them alot.
Yesterday I figured we should do something fun with them. It's hot (see above) so I thought a trip to the river to play some futbol and splash around in the water would be appropriate. My guys are always up for that and the gringos seemed to think it was a great idea. So we piled everyone into the back of my truck and away we went.
We took off to a place near the city where there are a bunch of restaurants along the river and a place where you can get down onto the sand. We hiked up onto a hill overlooking the river and...low and behold...there was no river.
I mean, the place where the river used to be was still there...there just wasn't any water. It was completely dry. Just sand. I've never seen that before. We walked down onto the riverbed to look around. The guys were fine...they just wanted to play soccer. They didn't really care much about the water. But I felt bad for the gringos...it was hot and their pasty white skin was already turning red (not to mention my pasty white skin).
I saw there was a long line of Bolivians hiking across the river to a clearing in the bush on the opposite side of the river. I figured the river must be flowing someplace and we should go find a spot where there was still water.
Ignoring the fairly vocal protests of my guys I struck out across the sand leading my motley crew. It was a long weekend here, so there were a LOT of people we were following.
We hiked...and hiked...and hiked. Every rise promised water on the other side...only to be met with more sand and more Bolivians dragging their kids and lawnchairs in a scraggly line.
The guys kept calling out from behind me, "Is there water?" "There's no water!" "Seriously! Is there water?"
I just ignored them (which is what I do) until a radom lady in front of us finally yelled, "YES! There's water!" She didn't add "Shut up already!" But it was definitely implied.
After awhile I have to admit that my faith was beginning to wane a little. So I told Ruddy to ask the next group of people ahead of us if there really was water. They called back, "They say there is..."
For a brief moment I was happy and then I was like, "Wait. 'They' say there is? Who the heck are 'They'"?
We stopped and I sent Ruddy running ahead to actually see if "They" knew what they were talking about. He came back a few minutes later laughing. As it turned out, there was water...but just a little pool of it where it hadn't dried out yet. He said there were so many people around it you couldn't even get close and it was jam packed with people.
So we gave up. I managed to save face because I made the point that technically there was water. It just turned out to be a little stagnant pool surrounded by hundreds of people. That part wasn't really my fault.
We eventually hiked back to where we started from and the guys immediately started playing with a random group of guys who were looking for a game. That's all they wanted in the first place. The chance to play futbol in the blazing sun in order to win enough money to buy a bottle of pop (the standard is everyone kicks in a Boliviano and the winning team keeps the money).
They ended up tying their game (no money for pop). The other team was mostly old guys (in my mind anyhow) so I suggested they play the group of little boys playing in the sand nearby. Maybe they could beat them. That gained me some looks, but I didn't care. It was payback for the half hour of "Is there water? There's no water!"...
I sat there in my lawnchair reading a book (it's what I do) and watched the hundreds of people stumble past me on the path in the sand. I could hear them on their cell phones saying, "Well, they say there's water..."
In the end we went for ice cream and that made it all good. We actually did have a good time. I think we'll wait for some rain before we go back though. Unending miles of sand isn't a beach.
It's a desert.
Oh...and by the way...I'm not going to appologize for not having posted for so long ...that stuff just gets old after awhile...
So, backstory It's been hot and dry here. Really hot. And really dry. Also, we have a team here. It's a group of six Americans who are on the third leg of a year long round the world missions trip. They're with us for a month. They're a great group and we're enjoying them alot.
Yesterday I figured we should do something fun with them. It's hot (see above) so I thought a trip to the river to play some futbol and splash around in the water would be appropriate. My guys are always up for that and the gringos seemed to think it was a great idea. So we piled everyone into the back of my truck and away we went.
We took off to a place near the city where there are a bunch of restaurants along the river and a place where you can get down onto the sand. We hiked up onto a hill overlooking the river and...low and behold...there was no river.
I mean, the place where the river used to be was still there...there just wasn't any water. It was completely dry. Just sand. I've never seen that before. We walked down onto the riverbed to look around. The guys were fine...they just wanted to play soccer. They didn't really care much about the water. But I felt bad for the gringos...it was hot and their pasty white skin was already turning red (not to mention my pasty white skin).
I saw there was a long line of Bolivians hiking across the river to a clearing in the bush on the opposite side of the river. I figured the river must be flowing someplace and we should go find a spot where there was still water.
Ignoring the fairly vocal protests of my guys I struck out across the sand leading my motley crew. It was a long weekend here, so there were a LOT of people we were following.
We hiked...and hiked...and hiked. Every rise promised water on the other side...only to be met with more sand and more Bolivians dragging their kids and lawnchairs in a scraggly line.
The guys kept calling out from behind me, "Is there water?" "There's no water!" "Seriously! Is there water?"
I just ignored them (which is what I do) until a radom lady in front of us finally yelled, "YES! There's water!" She didn't add "Shut up already!" But it was definitely implied.
After awhile I have to admit that my faith was beginning to wane a little. So I told Ruddy to ask the next group of people ahead of us if there really was water. They called back, "They say there is..."
For a brief moment I was happy and then I was like, "Wait. 'They' say there is? Who the heck are 'They'"?
We stopped and I sent Ruddy running ahead to actually see if "They" knew what they were talking about. He came back a few minutes later laughing. As it turned out, there was water...but just a little pool of it where it hadn't dried out yet. He said there were so many people around it you couldn't even get close and it was jam packed with people.
So we gave up. I managed to save face because I made the point that technically there was water. It just turned out to be a little stagnant pool surrounded by hundreds of people. That part wasn't really my fault.
We eventually hiked back to where we started from and the guys immediately started playing with a random group of guys who were looking for a game. That's all they wanted in the first place. The chance to play futbol in the blazing sun in order to win enough money to buy a bottle of pop (the standard is everyone kicks in a Boliviano and the winning team keeps the money).
They ended up tying their game (no money for pop). The other team was mostly old guys (in my mind anyhow) so I suggested they play the group of little boys playing in the sand nearby. Maybe they could beat them. That gained me some looks, but I didn't care. It was payback for the half hour of "Is there water? There's no water!"...
I sat there in my lawnchair reading a book (it's what I do) and watched the hundreds of people stumble past me on the path in the sand. I could hear them on their cell phones saying, "Well, they say there's water..."
In the end we went for ice cream and that made it all good. We actually did have a good time. I think we'll wait for some rain before we go back though. Unending miles of sand isn't a beach.
It's a desert.
