South America is BiPolar

Okay so we have decided that South America has been a BiPolar experience. Our highs are so high and our lows are so low. Everything is extreme! One day you are swimming with monkeys at an awesome ecolodge and then the next you are sitting waiting for a bus in La Paz and your backpack gets stolen. That´s right folks on Thursday night we were waiting for a bus in La Paz for Sucre and as we were checking our emails at an internet hub Jo´s backpack was stolen. Jo´s back pack had everything important in it from her passport, to credit cards, camera, camp good times patch and even license. This theif must have been a ninja because we were sitting on our packs. Before we go on you should all know that we are okay! We are in a safer city, Cochabamba, and in a really nice hostel. We have even found a cool little French Cafe that is meeting our needs of not consuming another fried chicken meal. Okay so back to the horrible backpack incident. So we called the embassy and were told to go the next morning with two pictures and they would take care of it. Jo also called her banks and everything is good. So we decided to hunker down for the night in a Hostel next to the bus station, that luckily had cable TV and we got to watch MTV Made, to us MTV felt like comfort food. Other than being shaken and it being probably the worst traveling thing that could happen we were okay.

So the next morning we went to the Embassy bright eyed and bushy tailed thinking the U.S. Embassy would surely solve all our problems and possibly even give us a free call to home or at least a cup of coffee in the movies. We were bitterly disappointed when the Secretary informed us that due to Carnival the Embassy was closed and would be until Wednesday! We felt a little betrayed and decided that the best thing to do would be to get out of La Paz. That morning with a bad taste in our mouth and an eagerness to get out of the city that wounded our little traveling hearts, we boarded a bus to Cochabamba. Cochabamba is a smaller city that also has an Embassy so we thought this would be a good location to camp out until we could get a replacment.

As we travelled to Cochabamba we had our first encounter with the immigration police. What awful luck right? Luckily Jo remembered more Spanish than she ever thought she knew and we made it through. We got to Cochabamba and found a really nice Hostel to stay in and our happy with our locale. We are really close to a little park where we have already made friends with a three year old named Alejandra. She loves ice cream (which we bought for her), coca cola (that she grabbed from us and started drinking) and us swinging her into groups of birds (which kind of freaks us out cause the birds come flying at our heads). Meeting Ale and her Mom has been a high.

We have also decided that Carnivale is the worst holiday ever because in Cochabamba it means no Embassy till wednesday and dodging water balloons like we are in a war. We seriously have PTSD now from it because as it turns out water balloons hurt! Everytime we hear a car we turn and pray that we won´t get pelted in the face. They also have shaving cream type stuff that they spray you with... who came up with this tradition cause we are about to punch them right in the face!

Okay so we have a little story to tell you about a monkey now that we are done purging! So we are having an awesome time swimming with monkeys at this awesome animal refuge place. All of a sudden we see this cute little monkey come up to the pool, Aly alomost pet it and Jo was too distracted by a monkey pooping in the pool. One of the guides at the refuge had a scared look on his face and told the owner to take a look at who got out. We were suddenly asked to quickly but calmly back away slowly because Cicerelo the alpha male mokey had chewed through his clothe leash and would attack if felt threatened. We quickly walked to the other side of the resort where we were told awful horror stories of Cicerelo giving people stitches and chewing through peoples ankles! We went back to our cabin and laughed for like twenty minutes because the monkey was about the size of Jo´s backpack that was stolen. It was so funny to think that we were all held hostage by a tiny monkey. Needless to say we made it out okay and he fer must have beem realy because this place has a bear that they aren´t as scared of.

Speaking of Monkey´s we should tell you one more funny story about a long jeep ride and a monkey tail dread. So for those of you that don´t know Aly is a little freaked out with big long dreads that look like monkey tails, no offense all you dreaders I think they are cool on your head not on my arm during a four hour jeep ride. So as we drove out of the amazon another guy on our trip had a big dread and was sitting right in front of Aly. His dread kept flicking her the whole ride and even hit her face, Jo feels like a horrible person because she couldn´t stop laugh. Actually both of us were busting up about this dreadful situation.

So there you have it folks we are happy, well fed and counting our blessings. Thanks for thinking of us and wishing us safe and happy travels. We are happy to leave Bolivia and go to Argentina once Jo is legal again! MOM´S we are okay and we love you! Until next time adventure is out there!

P.S. Brian Crater we were eaten alive in the jungle by Mosquitos and Sand flies, but we have no bugs in our brains yet, at least we don´t think so!