So…all year I’ve been wanting to go fishing here in Bolivia.  The stories of surubi, which is a relative of the catfish, and river trout were too much for me to resist.  On Tuesday, myself, Chris (the other socials teacher) and his brother, Spencer, went with the Mencia’s into the jungles of the Chapare to get some fish.  It was a great trip except for one thing: it had been cold earlier in the week, so all the fish had migrated to warmer waters deeper in the jungle.  We got to the river, and there wasn’t even little bait-fish. We stayed for a couple hours, and saw some geckoes, a flock of parrots, and a river dolphin (which are the blind, pink version of their Flipper-esque cousins).  However, with no fish, we decided to return to another arroyo closer to Cochabamba.

This arroyo was a very busy place, with much of the small town surrounding it there to swim, bathe, and wash their clothes. We got there and had a good time in the afternoon swimming and catching small trout.  There was a hostal right beside this swimming hole, and we had a great fish supper of surubi and pacu, which could only have been better if we had caught the fish ourselves.  We set up our tents at the hostal, and fished for much of the night.  In the morning, we woke up and cleaned up, and returned to Cochabamba.  On the way back, it was very foggy as we climbed the far side of the mountain in our van, but clear on the other side.  We got back around 2pm, tired but having enjoyed our fishing trip that involved very little fishing.

Today we are going to the Mencia’s for lunch, which promises to be a delicious heaping plate of food.  Later tonight we are going out for supper with Chris and Erin, as they are leaving tomorrow to return to Montana on a short home-assignment.  It has been a great year getting to know them and having a lot of good times.  We are actually some of the last of our group left, as most of the teachers who are returning to North America have already left.

There is currently a group from Middle Sackville Baptist here on a short-term project with CBM.  Over half of the group is June’s cousin and his family, which is a really neat tie for us.  We got to go for breakfast with them earlier this week, and are looking forward to spending a little more time with them before they leave.

Anyways, I’m going to sign off on this post now.  I will try to post pictures later today.

-Craig

Advertisement