Cochabamba

The night ride was freezing because several bus windows were open. So we weren't very sleepy. We reached our destination at 6:30 AM. And we saw an even fuller, louder and more colorful bus station. We were exiting the station as I reached in my bag for cameras because I wanted to take a photo of the place. And... the bag was empty! Both my valuables were missing! Can you imagine how I felt... hundreds of photos and videos ran through my memory that I had taken before. Thank God we had enough wisdom to find the bus we arrived in, we got on the bus and searched around our seats. My joy was endless when I saw that my treasures are still laying on the ground. They had slipped out of the bag during the night. Thank God! We grabbed a taxi and looked for a coffee house. Coffee is like fuel for Panfila - you have to fill up the tank time after time. We got out of the taxi at a nice cafe. I was the last one to get out so I had the honor to close the mistrustful taxi doors. And I have no idea where was my sense, reason and reaction... I clammed the doors with all my strength. Guess what stopped that clam? My thumb! I smashed my thumb. OUCH! Tears popped out of my eyes immediately. So did blood. My finger turned big and blue/red. But after giving my thumb a hot saltwater bath I was able to laugh about my clumsiness. I felt quite awkward the following days though. Who would have thought that life without a thumb is so hard? But as I said earlier - slowly I began to use my thumb again.
We visited Cochabamba market. It's like the face of the city because you can see all levels of society. Wherever I looked I saw ladies with long, black braids wearing full skirts. They don't like if you want to take a picture of them, they put their hands in from of their faces to ruin your picture. But I managed to take several photos of them. Because I want to show them to you, my dears! Cochabamba has it's of Jesus sculpture, like Rio de Janeiro. You can take a cable car to see it. We were lucky to climb up to Christ's arm - you have to take small, shivery stairs and it costs 1.50 Bolivians, which is very inexpensive. From Jesus' hand you can have a fantastic view of the hilly city. Beautiful! Of course, the place was full of tourists who took pictures at the statute. When we went down by the cable car, 3 local Bolivian men were riding with us. They started to ask where these beautiful women are from. When they learned that I am from Latvia, they asked if Russia is delivering gas for Latvia :) An excellent question! Some more questions, comments, remarks. Our ride was over soon but it seemed that one of the men wished it was longer... when we got off the car, he grabbed my hand to thank me and show his joy about meeting me. His joy was so big that he gave me a kiss on cheek before I even knew it. Panfila and Nayeli laughed and wondered why didn't they get a kiss :D But it's totally normal and even polite here... However we got away from those men quickly.
Cochabamba was full of poor people but they had big shopping malls too that were full of shops and restaurants. We entered one of them and what did we see? A movie theatre!!! I hadn't been in a movie theatre for such a long time... And the greatest joy was that we had enough time to watch a movie! :) I bought tickets for all of us and we saw Pirates of the Caribbean 4 :) It was so interesting to find things that reminded of Rincon's people... for example, their teeth :D I was very, very happy to go to a movie theatre.
Then we got on a bus that took us back to Santa Cruz. Another 12 hour ride. But I give all my respect to the bus companies - seats were very comfortable and suitable for long rides!