Potatoes and Sunshine

So, I've made it back to Copacabana! I arrived in La Paz, Bolivia at 5:15 Tuesday morning. Normally we take a few days to acclimate to the altitude in La Paz (3500m) before heading to Copacabana (3900m) to ease the huge transition up, but this year I arrived a few days after the other students from CMU so we headed up to the altiplano that same day. Only after buying all of the supplies we'd need for a few weeks which included fruit, bread, TP, and of course lots of potatoes! Once we finally headed out on the road to Copacabana, it was already 1pm and I was exhausted! The trip was relatively uneventful but gorgeous as always.

Once we got close to Copacabana, we learned that there was a surprise party being thrown for Sergio and Stasia in the neighboring town of Ch'isi (also a town that has a really awesome archaeological site where some of my dissertation skeletal collection comes from). Sergio and Stasia are going to be the "padrinos" or godparents of the town's high school graduation this year in December so they were regaling them with lots of flowers, food, and beer, followed by lots of dancing! It was really cool although somewhat extreme for my poor unadjusted self! I got really out of breath super fast while dancing and felt some chest tightness like never before. Kind of cool (especially since nothing bad happened, haha)!

Since then we have been reuniting with lots of people and also doing a bit of travelling- to Ch'isi again and then down to the (relative) lowlands of Sorata (2500m). Nice and warm down there although with bugs that bite worse than mosquitoes! We had a lot of fun scrambling around a friend's farm picking delicious fruit (grenadillas! yum!) and feasting. We got back to Copacabana last night and have a good week's work ahead out of us, which is good because I leave for Cusco a week from tomorrow! Eeps! This summer is already going so fast!