Officially past the halfway point in our trip, we were all settled into our routine in Cochabamba, Bolivia, and having a great time. A typical day would look like waking up sometime between 7 and 8 in the morning (depending on the plan for the day), heading to the lobby of our hotel for our breakfast, enjoying fresh fruit, tasty bread, and the most delicious tea I’ve ever had (I even bought a whole box of it before we left; it was that good!). Following our nourishment, we’d head up to the hotel’s conference room where we would listen to David Sr.’s lecture for the day, covering various points of history and culture of Bolivia. After listening and taking notes for a few hours, we would either have a block of free time or pile into our bus and go on a field trip. In the evenings we would listen to our guest lectures and have free time for dinner and working on our assignments. 

On day 6, which is where we left off last time, we did just that. After our informative session with our professor, we visited a couple poignant places: first, the historical site for the Heroines de la Coronilla, which memorializes the brave group of women who fought against the Spanish royalists in 1812 during (what is now)Bolivia’s war for independence. Following that, we were guided around the public cemetery of Cochabamba and learned about how the culture considers death, and the interesting ways that socioeconomic class intersects with that tradition.

After returning to the hotel and getting arepas next door with my friends, I had time for a quick nap before our next field trip. We took our bus to the Adelante Mujer house and joined the women there for a cooking class where we learned how to make salteñas, which quickly became my favorite Bolivian food. Adelante Mujer is a women’s shelter that supports women in their quest for valuable life skills, community, and the ability to support themselves. We heard all about their mission as we worked together to make the dough and filling for our delicious meal. I can’t even lie, I think I ate about four salteñas.

The next morning we were up bright and early for a trip to the Santa Teresa convent. We had a lovely tour where we learned more about the religious history and culture in Bolivia, and about what it was like to live in the convent as a nun, completely separated from the outside world. We got to see a lot of beautiful art and even their antique apothecary that they used to cure ailments since they didn’t outsource their medical help. After having all of our questions answered, we enjoyed more traditional Bolivian cuisine before heading back to the hotel for the day’s class. Our guest lecturer was an expert in social movements and he told us all about Cochabamba’s “Guerra del Agua” (water war). Essentially, the city came together in 2000 to protest the privatization of water servicing. My friends and I all thought it was super interesting and tied together with a lot of our guest lectures through their shared theme of activism. 

A quick nap later, and we were heading a couple blocks down to the second mansion built for Simon Patiño and his family, Palacio Portales. The building was elaborate and breathtaking, an exhibition of wealth and imported European culture. We finished the night with tea at the Palacio. I was thrilled that I got to try coca tea, a local delicacy that our local connections had been raving about for the entire trip. It’s made from the coca leaf, one of Bolivia’s main crops, and a cultural centerpoint. It was very tasty and worth the hype.

The following morning we were off on another field trip, this time to two of Cochabamba’s hospitals to learn about the healthcare system in Bolivia. First we got to talk with one of the doctors at the public hospital who answered all of our numerous questions, and then we walked around the public hospital. It was very crowded, and we were allowed and encouraged to look into people’s rooms to get the full tour. It was vastly different from how the hospitals I’ve been to in the US operate. Since public healthcare is free, the patients are not afforded much privacy, and they are the subjects for many students at Cochabamba’s renowned medical schools. This was a far cry from how things were at the private hospital, where it was quiet, had the most recent technology, and everyone was afforded extreme privacy, because everyone who was there for their services was paying an extreme amount of money, especially compared to the public hospital. This was one of the most impactful trips of the entire program. We did not stop talking about it for the rest of our time in Bolivia.

That night, in a complete departure from the previous subject matter of the day, we traveled to the outskirts of the city to visit Carlos, the Shaman. He told us all about his practice and the various ways he communicates wishes and prayers to Pachamama (aka mother earth) and he invited us to partake in a blessing ritual. Much like our Andean blessing from the first day, we had to hold in our mind our hope for the future and breathe that intention onto the symbolic offering that we then burned. We had tea together and heard about his experience as a shaman. Afterwards, our bus took its time coming to pick us up, and we all enjoyed watching the sunset from the quiet road, basking in each other’s company. 

It was over quickly after that. Our last two days were devoted to working on and then presenting our final presentations covering our compiled thoughts on the course and how we planned to apply what we learned to our lives back in the US. My friends and I visited the Palacio Portales again, before we left, and it was so strange, knowing that after ten days of incredible adventures, we would return to the way our lives were before: separate. Our travels home were less notable than the outbound journey, and in a short time, we were back on American soil with a whole summer ahead of us before we’d be back together in Pittsburgh.