Valle de la Luna

For my first trip outside of the city center a few weekends ago, I traveled by minibus with my coworker Jamie to a place called Valle de la Luna (Moon Valley), in a small town called Mallasa. It was definitely interesting to drive only about 25 minutes out of La Paz, watching the clusters of buildings fade away while heading towards mountainous terrain that sits just beyond it, and finally ending up standing on a completely different type of terrain.

Valle de la Luna sits between the views of mountains in the distance, a curious stretch of land with tall, jagged, beige peaks rising up from the ground like stalagmites. And with an entrance fee of 15 bolivianos (about 2 USD), I wasn't complaining.

According to the highly reputable source Wikipedia, these formations have been created through the erosion of a mountain. Although it looks like solid rock, I quickly learned that it was nothing more than clay and definitely not stable - it's easy to break off pieces with your hand.

So, being me, I wasn't satisfied with just walking on the safe, designated path - I had to do a little climbing!

That's my "focused, determined, and slightly scared for my life" face

Of course I put myself in a situation where at one point I had to go back down a slippery slope I had climbed up, which proved a lot harder on the way down. Pebbles under my old shoes made it difficult to control my descent, and the 2 options waiting for me at the bottom? Either a large, dark hole with no visible bottom, or a nice, prickly cactus. I tried to inch my way down as slowly as possible and luckily avoided both of those unpleasant demises.

The pit I almost fell into (not pictured: cactus directly towards the left of it)

The whole time I joked that I would get back to the smooth path and only then fall flat on my face. But as life goes, I escaped Valle de la Luna unscathed, only to eat it on a slippery patch of sidewalk in La Paz in front of my coworkers a few days later. Yep, sounds about right.

Overall, Valle de la Luna was a nice first excursion outside of La Paz, and it was just one of the many examples of the diverse landscapes and climates within or not far outside of this city.

Emi Me Encanta el Español (see what I did there?!)

I love speaking a non-native language. As I’ve repeatedly told my friends, family, and any poor acquaintance who will listen, I will forever be bitter about the fact that I technically could’ve been trilingual (since my parents are both American immigrants, from the Ukraine and Poland respectively). I’ve forgotten much of the limited Russian I knew when I was younger, and I was never taught Polish to begin with.

As I got older and learned the value of bilingualism, I adopted the Spanish language with open arms – from first learning it throughout high school and college, and now actively trying to maintain it by studying/working in Spanish-speaking countries (Guatemala, Spain, and now Bolivia). I’ll admit, my experience here is not 100% immersive, since Colosa is an American-based company and therefore my work is in English, my supervisor speaks English to me (he’s the only other native English speaker in the office), and many of my Bolivian colleagues speak English on a daily basis.

 

A quote I liked on the side of a building - "To dream is to wake up in another reality"

Nevertheless, I’ve made a few Bolivian friends with whom I speak Spanish, I exclusively speak Spanish with my homestay family, and city life requires me to speak Spanish with a variety of people – from restaurant and grocery store employees to street fair and kiosk vendors (known as “gremiales”). So, everyday I try to learn new vocab words, identify grammatical errors in my speech, and make any other minor changes that accumulate over time to make my Spanish better.
 
P.S., to get the play on words in the title, you should know that with the verb encantar (to love), it is grammatically correct to say “a mi me encanta” when you’re saying “I love” something. Does making puns (admittedly, pretty crappy ones) in Spanish qualify me for fluency?! Doubtful, but at least it’s something, right?

Hasta mañana,

Emi

Los Conductores Locos

One thing that took some getting used to here is the crazy driving. Now let’s be clear – I’m from New York, where you can find some of the worst, craziest drivers in the US. Where jaywalking is an art form, taxis cut you off left and right, and everyone seems to be trying to get to their destination before an apocalypse hits.

However, to me La Paz seems like NYC on steroids (fine, maybe that’s a bit exaggerated, but that’s how it felt at first!). Take the same crazy driving – people cutting you off, leaving centimeters between your car and theirs, double parking in highly inconvenient locations, etc., and now: 

1. Make traffic rules practically nonexistent/ignored

2. Add in poorer infrastructure (like lack of traffic lights and non-intuitive street formations)

3. Completely get rid of that ‘pedestrians have the right of way’ nonsense

4. Make honking not only acceptable (at all hours of the day, of course), but also a vital part of navigating the city streets and letting pedestrians and drivers know that you disagree with anything/everything they do

8:15am traffic at Plaza Isabela Católica. Whose idea was it to make two sets of 4 (or 5?) lanes merge?!

No room to park on a narrow two-way street? No problem, just park on the sidewalk!

Welcome to La Paz! (and probably many other cities in Latin America) Now that I’ve been here for 2 weeks, I’ve definitely gotten a lot more comfortable with this concept, but it was certainly one of the first things that struck me about this city.

Ciao (yes, they say that here),

Emi