Aucapata, March 3rd and 4th

Hi Folks:
After 3 weeks (22 days actually) without internet, it is time to catch up. After the week in La Paz, buying art supplies, groceries and meeting the people at the Ivar Mendez International Foundation, we met the bus at the office to load beds, refridgerator, stove, groceries, et al. We had spent the morning lazing around the Plaza Murillo and watching the people feed the hundreds of pidgeons that hang out there.
The bus was the usual Mercedes Benz of unknown vintage driven by Juan Carlos accompanied by his wife and son and daughter. I figured that from what I knew of the road to Aucapata, it was good to have a driver who took along his family. Should make him pretty prudent and in Juan Carlos´case it seems true. We were off at about 4pm and after a bit of confusion finding the old route up to El Alto, we arrived at the top. For those who don´t know, La Paz is built in a deep canyon along a river, and El Alto is a city that has built up on the high prairie. It was created by folks resettling from the country, and now is larger than La Paz itself. The airport is in El Alto. The main road through El Alto is under-going some major re-construction and so it was another hour before we cleared that city. By the time we passed Lake Titicaca it was getting dark and we climbed in the dark. The bus was drafty and very cold so that Joy and I had on every stich of clothes that we had. I even had on my Balaklava and gloves. Sleeping was fitfull and I awoke on a number of occasions to see a rock wall filling the windsheild before a sudden turn left or right.
At about 2:30am we arrived at a village square, whereupon Ernesto Landivar, our only accompanying person from IMIF, took off from the bus. As we were to take about 15 - 16 hours to reach Aucapata, we weren´t certain what was going on as Juan Carlos navigated the bus through a narrow space between a dumptruck and a wall. I finally dawned on me that this was Aucapata and Juan Carlos had managed to get us there in about 10 hours. We found the house and Ernesto had obtained the key. We spent the next 2 hours or so unloading the bus and finding mattresses to sleep on. The next morning (Sunday, March 4th) while Joy managed to get some sleep, Ernesto and I carried and put together beds and set up the appliances, and put away food.
When I awoke at 7am, I had my first introduction to the beauty that is the Aucapata area. I watched the clouds rise from the valley many hundreds of metres below. Although the sky was clear, by 8am the entire village was covered in cloud as thick as any Nova Scotia fog. Joy immediately had me cutting up chicken wire into squares for the first art class the next day. Ernesto took me on a tour of the village while Joy was sleeping which included going to the ¨Mirador¨where I had a view of the valley which would be so much a part of our life over the next 3 weeks. One of the main events in Aucapata is the arrival of one of the scheduled buses, but this Sunday the bus broke down about 2 hours and 500 metres in altitude away, so Lucy, another co-worker had to hike to Aucapata in the cold. Even though it is the equivalent of late summer, early Fall, at these heights it can get quite cold, particularly at night. By the time we got to sleep at 9pm we were beat.