Saturday, April 6, 2013

April 6, 2013 Finally Off

We have been waiting for everything to get organized for our three weeks in Aucapata. The first few weeks hanging around our old stomping grounds at the Torino, a kind of dingy multi story colonial building, was great. The security situation was much calmer than last year with no riot police in evidence around the Plaza Murillo. Holy Friday had a spectacular procession with many hooded figures carrying various scenes. In general the environment around the plaza, can keep us enthralled for hours with the little children playing among the pigeons. La Paz was quite quiet (for La Paz) over Easter weekend and so were we as we got used to the move from sea level to 3800 meters.
On Tuesday we moved to the hostel Ecuador in Sopacachi a more up-scale and newer area of La Paz. We are much closer to the office of the Ivar Mendez International Foundation and the shopping expeditions for art supplies and groceries. We had a wonderful meeting with Mario Conde Cruz and Javier Fernandez, the two artists that are coming to Aucapata to paint with Joy and teach in one of the larger schools. They are very enthusiastic about seeing the area and the children. They are particularly excited about getting to Iskanwaya, the ruins of the Mollan culture, situated below Aucapata.  We are hoping that they will be providing advice and assistance for the art program in the future.
We leave for Aucapata at 4:30am with Cynthia, Ernesto, Paz (the best driver in Bolivia), Danilo, Joy and I. That means three weeks without Internet.

1 comment:

  1. Have fun... will miss our email updates, but I know there will be tons when you get back

    Love you both!
    YFD/YFSD

    ReplyDelete