Josh Renaud

Holy buñuelos, Batman!!

Late breaking news from Yoli in Bolivia:

Apparently the campesinos are lifting their blockades until Oct. 15 to give the government and the opposition leaders time to negotiate. All the festivities for tomorrow's Dia de Santa Cruz (24 de Septiembre) are back on.

You can read a bit more in this news brief from El Deber (but the translation isn't great)

Anyway, upon hearing this news, she called the airport to see if her flight was still canceled. They told her that as far as they had heard, the flight was still on.

Then she called me. And then I called American Airlines. The person there insisted the flight was still canceled.

So I called Yoli back. We agreed that it was still worth it for her to drive to the airport tomorrow with the luggage and the girls on the chance that the flight would still leave.

After that I continued calling American. It took several calls before they finally told me that, yes, the flight was scheduled after all. Then we got Yoli and the girls switched back onto tomorrow's flight (and there were some hand-wringing moments during that process).

Long story short: Yoli is returning home tomorrow after all. Hooray!

... nevermind

Things are heating up in Santa Cruz. So American Airlines has again canceled flights, right on the eve of Yoli's departure. Obviously she is very disappointed about that. She had everything packed and had given away her extra food and everything in preparation for leaving.

Her flight has been rebooked for next Wednesday, so that means they'll stay in Bolivia another week. Please pray that things will cool down and that they will be able to fly out of there on Wednesday as scheduled.

Heading home (hopefully)

Yoli is scheduled to leave Santa Cruz tomorrow morning and arrive in St. Louis around 10 p.m. As far as we know, everything is on track for this flight to take off.

We are concerned by the "siege" that is taking place around Santa Cruz. Basically various groups of supporters of the government have come down from Cochabamba and other places and are marching on the city. They have established blockades at the major roads out of Santa Cruz. Yoli says that some of them are miners with dynamite.

You can read more at MABB and Pronto

This is disappointing to Yoli, because Santa Cruz has generally been a more laid-back place than the western highland cities in Bolivia. These sort of city-strangling tactics are common there ... but now it is happening to Santa Cruz, too.

Our hope is that American continues to fly out of Bolivia, so Yoli, Jadzia, and Ludi can get home. But also we hope that peace can come to Bolivia without these tactics and confrontations that lead to bloodshed.

Kids, classes, and classmates

Yoli sent even MORE photos for your viewing pleasure.

Jadzia dancing "B-I-N-G-O" in Spanish.

At the birthday party of Yoli's high school classmate Karina. Also, Carol and Enrique from high school are there.

Ludi and Jadzia playing with the children of Yoli's high school classmates.

Ludi playing in the bed with her cousins Génesis and Raquel.

Jadzia likes going to her "school" at El Jordán, where Heidi is her teacher.

Ludi has become good friends with Corina's cousin Jenny.

Yoli taught a cake decorating class for the girls at El Jordán. They show off the soccer ball cake they decorated together.

And here's another cake they made, a baby shower cake.

Yoli's friend Dora holds her new baby boy, Abner Kenneth.

The big girl

I had a nice chat with Yoli tonight. Here are some excerpts from that conversation:

The Alasitas Fair is opening tomorrow. I would like to go. Maybe I can get some crafts or aguayos, or something to decorate our home. But I'm not sure ... the artisans from other parts of Bolivia haven't come because of the blockades on the roads to Santa Cruz.

I hope I can find some puzzles or brain teasers at the fair, like the ones at the Science Center. But I'm not sure if I'll find what I want. It is usually busy on weekends, so I might try going on Monday.

This morning, Ludi used the potty. So, Jadzia said she was old and big and didn't need the little potty. She climbed up onto the toilet seat (without the adaptor) and was like that almost all day. But eventually, she told me she was going to use the adaptor. I was afraid she would fall inside.

The ironic thing is, Jadzia says she is big, but often she still wants us to help spoon-feed her.

Marco has been very nice to Jadzia. She likes to see him working and when he says "hi", she comes back to report to me that he said "hi" to her. Everything he says, she comes back to me to report it.

The other day, he told her in a scary voice "Jadzia, soy un loboooooooooo" (Jadzia, I am a wolf).

Jadzia laughed loud and came to tell me, "Marco dice que está un lobo, está chistoso." (Marco said that he is a wolf. He's funny.)

Now when she sees him, she asks, "Marco está un lobo?" (she's not using the correct verb, but you get the point)

Jadzia also gets excited when she sees Corina and keeps asking her what she's doing.

She speaks Spanish almost all the time and even asks me to sing some songs in their Spanish version.

We love parties

Jadzia and Ludi have really had their share of birthdays in Bolivia. Here's a couple of photos from Yoli showing the girls at a birthday party they attended about a week and a half ago, the same Saturday that I left Bolivia. (That's Jadzia greeting the birthday girl in the photo above)

This is a more recent photo of Ludi making a glorious mess while eating some food.

The girls

A quick update on Yoli's situation: not too much has changed for her. Things remain relatively quiet in Santa Cruz. On the national and international level, there are some signs that the Bolivia crisis is cooling off.

With more time to spend in Bolivia, Yoli has begun teaching cross-stitch to some students at El Jordán.

She tells me that Ludi has been speaking some things rather clearly in Spanish: "No quiero" (I don't want); "Dame" (Give me); "No toque mama" (don't touch, mama); "Coma" (eat! (as a command)).

Because Jadzia has accumulated a couple of goody bags from various birthday parties, she is constantly asking for candy or cookies. In terms of real food, she seems to crave cornflakes and tacos.

Yoli says that Jadzia seems a bit bored and maybe ready to go home. Of course it doesn't help that Yoli was telling her they would be going home in advance of Sunday's flight ... and then it was cancelled. So she had to explain that to Jadzia, who probably doesn't really understand.

Yoli has interviewed her mom on tape for our family history project. She says that her mom surprised her, talking in great detail and sharing many memories from when she was young. There were stories that Yoli had not heard before.

Stuck in Santa Cruz

Yoli called American Airlines and got bad news this morning: her flight had been cancelled. She rescheduled for a flight that will leave Sept. 24. Basically, she's going to be there 10 more days.

The rhetoric in Bolivia is not ratcheting down. It's getting worse and worse, with president Evo Morales now calling the violence in the country a fascist coup attempt.

He has imposed martial law on the province of Pando, flown in troops to restore order, and declared Pando's governor a wanted man, blaming him for the violence there. The death toll in Pando now has reached 28.

There's a good story on how this is playing out for everyday people in Santa Cruz, which is where Yoli is staying.

I will try to provide more information as I get it. Please pray that Yoli and the girls and our friends and family will continue to be safe ... and that flights will resume as soon as possible.

Yoli's Friday

Yoli sent me the following update, which I am posting for her:

Well, I'm at Eliza's today. Boris wanted to learn how to make a lemon pie. But it seemed to me he wasn't that interested. I don't know, maybe it's just I'm so tired here. I can't wait to go back home.

My mom cooked "Sabalo" fish, which was good. I made the lemon pie, with little help from Boris, but we haven't eaten it yet. Jadzia and Ludi are napping, but Jadzia has a fever. I brought the video camera, so I hope I can film my mom later.

Things here in Santa Cruz, well in Bolivia don't look good. I saw in the news today that all international flights are cancelled, at least till this weekend. But we'll see what happens. I hope everything goes back to normal. What worries me is that one of Jadzia's medicine might run out if we stay here longer.

Tonight my friend Dora should have her baby delivered by c-section. I'm going to call her home tomorrow and find out how she is and I'll try to visit her.

What Yoli's up to

Despite the events roiling parts of Bolivia, Yoli and the girls are doing just fine. Yoli taught three days of cake decorating classes for girls at El Jordán, and she also spent some time teaching quilling techniques.

She's been spending a lot of time with family, too, including showing some of her sisters how to bake American treats like chocolate chip cookies. She said the batch she did down there was better than any she has made up here! That's a real reversal, because usually her American recipes don't turn out so well down there -- ingredients like baking powder aren't formulated the same, and the heating in ovens is inconsistent.

Jadzia is speaking Spanish almost exclusively, but there are a few English speakers around who engage her (plus Marco has been trying to practice some English on her). I talked with her for a bit on the phone yesterday and she sounded pretty good.

Deadly dangerous

Just a quick update on the Bolivia situation:

• Eight people were killed yesterday in fighting in Bolivia's Pando province. The protests and violence led American Airlines to cancel all flights through Saturday. Flights should resume Sunday, just in time for Yoli. But we'll have to keep an eye on that.

• Evo's decision to boot the American ambassador led the U.S. to (obviously) do the same to the Bolivian ambassador. Then Chavez joined the fun and deported the American ambassador in Venezuela. As Jim Shultz points out, this diplomatic tit-for-tat comes at a time when Bolivia sorely needs diplomatic intervention from the outside.

• There's little hope for peace. In fact, Miguel at Pronto passed along this bit of news from La Razon: A pro-Evo civilian group called the "Poncho Rojos" are mobilizing to recapture the government installations captured two days ago by the "civicos."

Conflict in Bolivia

The news out of Bolivia, specifically the eastern provinces of the country, is bad. Civic groups in Santa Cruz have taken over almost all public institutions, including the headquarters for the phone company Entel. You can get a very good summary of the events at the weblog Pronto.

Bolivia's president has responded by accusing the U.S. ambassador of fomenting the breakup of Bolivia and ordered his expulsion from the country. As Miguel points out in the Pronto weblog entry I cited above, if the U.S. ambassador is indeed expelled, it will be the only time a Latin American nation has ever done so.

The Bolivian newspaper La Razon says that American Airlines has suspended flights to the country. I am trying to get in touch with AA to confirm if this is true. Yoli and the girls were set to fly home Sunday night. I'm not sure what our options will be if AA is no longer flying to and from Bolivia.

I spoke yesterday with Yoli for about an hour on the phone. She had been aware of the Entel takeover, but beyond that didn't know much of the news. It hadn't affected her much, beyond a big delay in the arrival of the buses she needed to get from place to place. Most of this seems to have taken place downtown. El Jordán is between the third and fourth rings, while Yoli's family live mostly on the eastern side of the city near the river Piraí, all relatively distant from the city center.

Anyway, please pray for this situation.

First, that there would be peace. It appears that much worse violence could be at hand in various parts of the country, and I hope that can be averted.

Second, that Yoli and the girls, our family, and our friends in Bolivia would be protected. And that Yoli and the girls could return home safely and in a timely fashion.

UPDATE: American tells me that they cancelled some morning flights, but that the evening flights from tonight through the weekend are still scheduled. I'll just have to keep checking and make sure that doesn't change.

From surazo to St. Louis

My journey home Saturday was pretty uneventful. The flight from Bolivia was packed.

When I left Santa Cruz, it was still in the midst of a surazo, or a cold front caused by winds from the south. The last day and half or so were somewhat chilly, but I got by with two layers of short-sleeved shirts and a pair of blue jeans.

My brother-in-law Juan drove Yoli, the girls and I to Viru Viru International Airport. I had noticed a potential problem when I checked our flight itineraries online: I was the one listed as having a lap baby. But this obviously wouldn't be true for the flight home. Anyway the AA people at the airport assured us this wouldn't be a problem when Yoli returns home next week.

Jadzia cried a bit when we said goodbye, but I reminded her she had some fun things to do. She was invited to attend a birthday on Saturday, for one. This seemed to cheer her up.

It's tough to leave the girls behind. I hope they treat Yoli well, but I know they can be more than a handful.

I slept a little on the plane, but not much. Thankfully I got both breakfast and lunch on the flight. It is a totally different experience making that transcontinental air crossing by day. I was able to see a lot of amazing landscapes as we flew over South America, but not until about halfway through the flight because of cloud cover. I saw beautiful mountain vistas and a lot of swollen rivers and flooded-out lands ... and of course the ocean and islands.

I passed my five-hour layover in Miami much the same as on the trip down: I watched a movie on the computer. But I killed a lot of time going through immigration and customs, etc. You have to pick up your checked baggage and check it again when you come to Miami from an international flight. On this occasion, some airport dudes were grabbing bags from off the carousel and putting them into random piles. I couldn't find two of my items and I had to keep going in circles, watching the carousel while also looking over all these piles. They both turned out to be in different piles.

During my movie-watching at Gate 30 (the mostly-empty, defunct gate I mentioned at the beginning of our trip) there was a teen-looking kid next to me who also apparently had come from Santa Cruz. He described various adventures in loud detail on his cellphone. Among his exploits: drinking lots of "Bolivian rum," getting his lip cut open by some guy with a broken bottle, and stealing a street sign that bore his surname because the street was named for his grandfather or great-grandfather and "so the sign basically belonged to my family." In this latter tale, a Bolivian police officer saw what he did and chased him. The kid claimed to have spent "10 bolivianos" using various taxis to elude the police. I'm sure his Bolivian forefather would have been very proud.

Now I'm back home. I'm still tired and Ive got to head to work soon. I'm also still a bit foggy ... I keep expecting to see all the buses on the street, or yards with walls topped y barbed wire and broken glass, or people soldering on the streets, or lots of palm trees. Not anymore. Not til next time.

Final photos from Josh

These are the last few photos we took in Bolivia before I returned home. Yoli will be taking more photos during this next week, but may not be able to post them until she is back in St. Louis. in the meantime, here you go:

Ludi has been using a bucket as a hat the last few days.

This is Marco, Corina's husband. Since they got married, Marco has begun ministering to boys at El Jordán. He teaches leatherworking classes. But they want to do so much more. The problem is space and location. They really need a different place to hold boys' classes where they could offer more messy stuff like welding or mechanics.

In this photo Marco is helping me with a pair of sandals. I bought these hand-made sandals last year in Bolivia and they are pretty good. But the velcro strips weren't long enough, so I asked Marco if he could take off the velcro and move the strips farther down. He did it -- in like 15 minutes!

Don Hector shows off his motorcycle ...

... and his new car.

Jadzia plays with her abuelita Luci.

Exit Josh, stage left

Today is my final day in Bolivia. Early tomorrow I'll head to the airport and get home Saturday night. But Yoli and the girls will remain here for another week. During that time Yoli will be posting some entries about what they experience (but probably not photos).

This afternoon we'll be visiting Don Hector again to do more video interviewing, plus I'll scan some more family photos. After that we'll visit Eliza and Boris to say goodbye to them and Dona Lucila. Also, they have some family photos I'll try to scan as well.

Then it's packing time. Nothing like packing the night before the flight... that's the only way to travel!

Putzing around the Plaza

Thursday morning we decided to take the girls to visit Santa Cruz's Plaza.

A couple years ago they sort of revamped the plaza. They removed many trees and made other changes. At the time it didn't look so good, but now that the trees have grown back it looks much better. There are also city guards all over the place who keep away street vendors and vagrants. This is somewhat controversial, but I suppose it does make the Plaza more inviting for tourists.

We had planned to go up on top of a shopping mall along the Plaza to get a nice view. Yoli and I did this way back in 2003 and got some nice photos. However as we walked in front of the Basílica Menor de San Lorenzo, we noticed that one of its towers was labelled mirador (an observation tower). This was new to us, and we thought it would be really cool to climb up with the girls. Unfortunately, the tower was closing at noon, and it was 11:40. They wouldn't let us go up.

We were bummed, but it wasn't a huge deal. We headed over to the shopping mall and zigzagged our way up to the third floor, looking for the staircases which would put us on the roof. We finally found them -- but barricaded by flags and buckets of cement. The roof was closed!

Oh well. We still managed to get a lot of nice photos of the Plaza and its environs. Enjoy.

Wednesday in photos

Mmmm, milk in a bag ...

Mmmm, yogurt in a bag ...

Sunset view No. 1, along one of the streets in Yoli's old neighborhood.

Sunset view No. 2, along one of the streets in Yoli's old neighborhood.

Kids playing soccer in the big field across the street from Don Hector's house.

Flag and sign on the kiosko that Don Hector runs in front of his house.

Sara, Yoli, and Don Hector enjoy some mate at Don Hector's house.

Jadzia being tickled by her cousin Jesy.

Yoli at her sister Eliza's house, gives a little language Spanish lesson to her niece Melany (left).

Dudes in the trunk

Thought you might get a kick out of this. First time I've seen this particular seating arrangement in Bolivia.

Paradise

We spent all day Monday at the BioCentro Guembe, a new tourist destination in a suburban area near Santa Cruz called Urubo.

Getting there involved taking a bus to a spot on the fourth circle, then a taxi that would take us to the park. The drive through Urubo was interesting, it was my first chance to see a suburb for the rich people. It reminded me of development in St. Charles County and other exurbs in St. Louis. People build these beautiful, exclusive gated communities in the middle of nowhere, looking for peace, tranquility and a home away from the riff-raff. But eventually development will catch up with them, and the pastoral setting will be gone.

Back to the point, the park was beautiful. It's somewhat pricey to get in, but once inside you can do tons of stuff. There are multiple levels of outdoor pools, fed by a waterfall and connected by little streams. There's a lagoon with free kayaking. A "mini-club" which is like this big, beautiful castle for kids to play in, along with separate kids pools, a sand pit with toys, two different jungle gyms, swings, etc. There are no shortage of hammocks and seats for relaxing.

The park also has a butterfly house, a large orchid exhibit, and an unbelievably huge bird cage with an observation tower that takes you way up above the trees and gives you a nice view of office towers in distant Santa Cruz. A guided tour of these facilities is included in admission.

You can also pay extra for horse carriage rides, fishing, bike rentals, cabins, camping and food. Here is where we ran into a little bit of a problem. We brought pretty large chunk of change, but it was just barely enough to cover all our expenses for the day. We really had to skrimp at lunch (the restaurant is quite pricey, and the cheapest item on the menu, pizza, isn't available at lunch), but we ended up having enough money to get home. If we had remembered to bring our debit card, there would have been no problems, but you so rarely can use a debit card in Bolivia that we never take it anywhere (plus, it's not especially safe to have it in case you get robbed).

It was a lovely day. We started by dipping our feet in the adult pools. We didn't bring any swimsuits, but now I am wishing we had packed them. It was still nice, though. Ludi, of course, doesn't understand about wading. By the end of the day, she was naked, playing in the water. Jadzia accidentally got her pants and underwear soaked, so we had to hang those up to dry.

Jadzia really got a kick out of the mini club and we spent quite a while there. After a while we headed to the restaurant for lunch. We ended up getting three hamburgers and a pitcher of lemonade. It was good eats, with good french fries, but I wish we had had a bit more money available to spend.

We had hoped that Jadzia and Ludi would nap at midday in the hammocks. As usual, Jadzia was excited at first to see the hammocks, but all her fear kicked in when it was time to lay down in one. She would sit in it, but not lay down, not even after her Papa modeled how nice it was. Yoli came over and did some tricks to get her laughing and relaxed and laid down. But neither of the girls would sleep. Since they weren't acting sleep-deprived and silly, we decided to let them stay up.

On the tour, we saw a little office/lab where they raise butterflies. In two large tanks there were tons of cocoons of various colors, shapes and sizes. From there we walked out to the butterfly housee. It was a lovely walk with interesting things to see along the way (like tiny honey bees that don't sting you). Inside the butterfly house was pretty fun, not unlike the butterfly exhibit at the St. Louis Zoo. Pretty much all these butterflies are species native to this area of Bolivia.

Next we saw the bird cage. The cage itself was just gargantuan. I really can't gauge how big it was, but it must have been like a football field or something, and taller than the trees. Because it was midday, the birds were quiet and not really flying around. This cage is different from the one at the St. Louis Zoo. The path from the woods into the cage begins to climb higher, so that when you enter the cage, you are already elevated off the ground, and among the branches of the trees. At the observation tour, you just climb a series of two spiral staircases which take you out of and above the cage. On our way up we saw a parrot up close. Monday was a pretty windy day, but the gusts were much stronger on the deck of the observation tower. The views were awesome. If not for the fact that we had the girls with us and that Yoli is not especially keen on heights, I would have stayed up there longer.

The last part of the tour was the orquideario, where we could see many varietes of orchids. This wasn't the best time of year to see them, but still we saw many beautiful orchids in bloom. I got several decent photos, as you can see.

After all that, we took Jadzia back to the miniclub and the pools for a bit. It was about this time we took Ludi's clothes off so she could really splash in the water. After that, we took a walk along the shore of the lagoon and found a nice spot with some chairs, two hammocks, and a swing. It was almost time to leave so we couldn't spend as much time in the hammocks as I would have liked, but it was nice to relax for a bit. I have included two photos here which I like to call "Views from a hammock."

There were some problems with getting taxis to go home, as they were wanting to charge us far more than it had cost us to drive there in the morning. But eventually we found somebody who took us straight back to El Jordan for a fairly reasonable price.

All in all it was an exhausting day, but lovely. You could really spend a lot of time at the BioCentro Guembe, indeed probably a whole vacation (though the price of the food would be a deterrent). It's one of the best-run, most beautiful facitilities I have ever seen in Bolivia, and its clear the owners had vision and dedication to start it up. I think it will be a major tourist attraction.

Leya's parties

Some tidbits about Leya's two quinceaneras this weekend.

Saturday's party

First a few quick anecdotes that we heard Sunday about Leya's "friends" birthday party, which was held on Saturday:

• A girl got a serious cut that required a trip to the doctor. This was from playing in the pool.

• Later on, a boy (who is either Leya's cousin or uncle) broke his arm.

• When it was cake time, Leya's friends wanted to push her face into the cake, which is a big party tradition in Bolivia, I guess. But since this was a cake Yoli covered with fondant, they couldn't get her messy. The fondant protected her from the buttercream icing underneath. No matter how many times they pushed, the cake was unharmed and Leya unblemished.

Sunday's party

Here's a recap of what happened during Sunday's "family" birthday party, which we attended with Ludi and Jadzia:

Yoli finished this cake entirely at El Jordan in advance of the party. We took photos of it. Unfortunately, on our taxi ride to Tio Adonai's, there was a big bump and some of the flowers on top were broken (The taxi driver was also talking and/or texting on his cell phone while he was driving, but I digress). The cake still looked really beautiful despite this.

Just like at Jadzia's birthday party, all the little cousins eventually started doing their "slide traffic jam" thing where they would all slide down and bump into each other.

Leya's parents Lucy and Juan prepared some "Keperi" beef, arroz con queso (cheesy rice), and a potato/vegetable salad to eat for dinner. It was pretty good. All the kids were together at some smaller tables. Jadzia did okay for a bit, but then decided she didn't want to eat anything and put on a bit of a scene. But it didn't last for too long.

Yoli's sister Noemi led a game of trying to find out which of Leya's parents knew the most about Leya. She asked them a series of questions and to see who knew the right answer. Sometimes it wasn't either of them!

Later Lucy recounted the story of Leya's birth. One of the highlights: When Lucy went out for a walk at the hospital, Juan jumped into her bed to sleep. When she came back later and woke him up to kick him out of the bed, he asked if the baby had been born yet.

The evening went later than we were planning on, but we had to stick around because we wanted to see the cake cut and eaten. Thankfully Jadzia and Ludi were playing fairly well and had not gotten to slap-happy.

Everyone really loved looking at Yoli's cake and enjoyed eating it. But many Bolivians just don't get fondant. Most cakes are covered here in either butter cream or whipping cream. So the chewiness of fondant makes it a bit weird for them, but it does enable some beautiful cake designs, which is why cake decorators use it.

Jadzia's tia Sara took Jadzia on her lap to feed her some cake and try to get her to talk. They had a lot of fun.

Sara and her boyfriend Cesar gave us a ride back to El Jordan in his car. We found out the next day, though, that they had an accident at the end of our street after dropping us off. While trying to turn onto the main avenue, Cesar braked suddenly and the car behind him rear-ended his car.

Tio Adonai's memories

Went to see Tio Adonai to record some of his stories and memories. Unfortunately we only got through 2 questions before we ran out of tape, and I had forgotten to bring the new tape along with us. So we'll have to go back and tape him again sometime later. We are also planning to do this for Yoli's dad, and possibly her mom. I think it will be very valuable to us, our children, and indeed the rest of the family to have these sorts of stories on video, told in first person by the people who lived them out.

Visiting Cotoca

We made it to Cotoca. It only took us a few years.

Cotoca is a little town outside of Santa Cruz that is known for its arts and crafts market on Sundays. It is also home to the Virgen de Cotoca, which draws religious pilgrims from the surrounding area to come and receive blessings.

Yoli and I had been meaning to visit pretty much every time we've been in Bolivia (I think this is my 7th trip). But something always comes up, either with our schedule or with regional politics. The last few years there had been fights going on that deterred us from visiting.

But this year, everything was pretty much peaceful, so we finally made it out.

Along the way we passed a tollbooth -- a tollbooth that had been hijacked by the handicapped. It's a long story, one which I don't fully understand, but ....

As we left the bus and walked towards the plaza at the center of town, we passed several restaurants where patumucos and arepas were being cooked outside. We had already planned to buy food in town, but it was hard to resist just buying right away!

As we walked around the plaza, we saw lots of pilgrims at the church. Along the streets were numerous booths filled with beautiful pottery, lots of handmade wood items like poros for mate, and bright plastic toys.

We also saw several amusements: a bunch of foot-powered bicycle/cars where two people could ride, and a bowling-style game that used a soccer ball and the participant's kick. If you could knock down all the cups with one clean kick, you could win 5 Bs.

The plaza itself was under renovation and it didn't have many benches available. We decided to wander back toward the first restaurant we saw when we got to town and eat there. We ordered three arepas, one pacumuto, one zonzo, hot chocolate for Jadzia, chica for me, and mocochinchi for Yoli. It was pretty good overall, but Jadzia was picky with her food. In fact, all day I had a bit of trouble getting her to eat. (Funny how we never have problems getting her to drink chocolate milk in a bag or hot chocolate in a mug)

Before we left town we headed to a sort of plaza within the Cotoca church. There was a special covered area with murals in the back and tables in the front where pilgrims could light candles and pray.