San Borja

Hello from Bolivia! We made it to La Paz late Tuesday night with only one smoking infraction on the plane (not us).

It’s winter here, so La Paz can be chilly at night. Fortunately for Kelly, who gets cold in 70-degree weather, we didn’t stay long. Our flight to Rurrenabaque, home of a huge national park, was Wednesday morning at 10 am. The airplane held 19 passengers.

Amazingly, there were no delays along the way. The flight went over the Andes mountains and then the mountains disappear and the plane is over the jungle.  It's quite a sight to behold. Kelly was in awe of the white peaks just outside the plane and snapped this shot.

After a quick lunch in Rurre (for the Ochs family, who I’m sure is holding out for more food details, we’ll have a post soon about food), we took a 3.5-hour taxi ride to San Borja, the town we’ll spend most of our time in when we’re not in the villages. The road was pretty funny in that it had short stretches of paved road followed by dirt patches and detours that were pretty bumpy - good for speed control, but not an upset stomach, which luckily neither of us have gotten yet.

We arrived in San Borja covered in dust from the road. All in all though, the trip from North Carolina to San Borja took us 32 hours without any delays or problems, a record according to Asher. We're now in San Borja, one of the closest towns to Tsimane' villages and is mostly a cattle ranching town. And there is a statue of a ganadero, cattle rancher, that we came upon.

Actually, there is a National Geographic documentary about the trip truck drivers take on the Yungas road, commonly referred to as the Death Road, from La Paz to San Borja to pick up cattle. Asher spent two weeks here last summer, so he’s been showing Kelly around. We have been exploring a bit and walked by the San Borja hospital, where we saw both a horse and a cow grazing in the yard. It is a really good hospital and also efficient. They treated Asher really quickly four summers ago when he got Salmonella. Hopefully we won't need to use it, but it's nice to have it here.

More soon, but so far all is well. We love getting emails from friends and family, so keep them coming!