Coroico.

We took another trip this past weekend!  This one was a lot more relaxing and vacation-y than our first trip. Friday afternoon, we went and hired a minibus to take us to Coroico, a small town in the Yungas.  The trip was about three hours, but there was incredible scenery the entire way.  To get there, we had to first go up really high to about fourteen thousand feet above sea level and then drive straight down. I think Coroico is only at about five thousand feet.  We drove through the cloud forest, so we were literally driving through the mountains surrounded by clouds.  I took so many pictures, but they don't really look like much haha.  The mountain scenery was beautiful, though.  Our hotel was on the outskirts of town up on a hill, so we had an incredible view.

It was kind of chilly our first night there.  We met up with our friend Alvaro who is in our class.  He's familiar with Coroico, so he took us to places to get dinner and dessert.  Then we went to this really cool place called Carla's Garden Pub, which is exactly what it sounds like haha a bar out in a garden.  And then we went dancing.  The next morning, we got up earlyish, ate breakfast, and went to find instructions on how to walk down to the river at the bottom of the mountain.  The man working in the tourism office helped us arrange a taxi to pick us up at the bottom so we wouldn't have to walk the three hours back up the mountain. So we set off with a bag full of pringles, ritz crackers, and water haha.  It really did take about three hours to get down.  At first, we were walking on the main road, and it was easy enough.  Then we had to get on this tiny, narrow trail that was angled practically straight down.  That was not as easy. But we made it!  We spent a few hours cooling off in the very cold water and lounging around in the sun.  Our taxi driver got there around 4:30, but Alvaro and Anastasia decided to walk back up the mountain! Crazies. Emily, Sarah, and I took the taxi haha. We had already paid for it anyway.  And the taxi driver turned out to be awesome.  We ran upon a herd of sheep at one point, and he got out and chased down this baby lamb so Sarah could hold it!

After dinner that night we all just walked around a little bit and then hit the bed. We were super tired from walking.  When we got back to La Paz, we found out that our hot water heater had burst and flooded our living room! The workers came today and ripped up the carpet and replaced the hot water heater, but we're still waiting for it to heat up enough water for us to shower. Also, there was a transportation strike today. Kinda. No one really followed through with it haha there were taxis and minibuses on the roads this afternoon. We did have to have our morning class at the house though, because we couldn't get down to the university.

I think that's about all for now...I'm meeting with my embassy contact tomorrow afternoon.  Hopefully I'll get some good info, and I'll be able to knock out this project pretty soon!