An Interesting Turn of Events
I don’t know how to
explain it, but I have felt really tired the last few weeks. Drained more than anything. I know it was so necessary for me to return
to Texas to be with my mom after she broke her hip, but it left me exhausted. I needed a break.
Upon writing this blog, I have
been back in Bolivia for three weeks (and a few more since writing it).
Several are disappointed at me for not returning immediately to the
Learning Center to work, but the thought of spending hours preparing for a
class, leaves me drained. My sleep
patterns are off. I am sleeping about 10
hours when I do sleep, but that might mean waking up at 6 am or 11 am. I usually take short 15 minute naps in the
afternoon, but lately they turn into 5 hours.
You can imagine how happy I was when Fernando gladly gave me the keys to
his little house in Samaipata.
I woke up early and was able to
get out of the house by 7:15. I had to
give my taxi driver directions to the trufis to Samaipata, but we found it
quickly enough. They were ready to go,
but needed one more person besides me.
After a 10-minute wait, I felt an overwhelming desire to get on the
road.
I went to the driver and said,
“How many more passengers do you need?”
“Just one.”
“I want to be in Samaipata by
11:00, so I am willing to pay for one more person.” It is not a costly journey, only $4.50. Paying for a second person so we could go was
only $9. It costs that much to park at
the Dallas Zoo!
In two minutes, we were on the
road and there was room to spare. My
paying extra did not get me shotgun, but that didn’t matter. There was an old man sitting next to me. I say old, but he could have been my
age. He kept looking at me throughout
the journey. It felt like he was asking
himself, “what kind of person pays so much for a trufi to Samaipata?” I didn’t care. I was on the road.
We slowly worked our way out of
Santa Cruz. It is less than 10
kilometers from the center to be out of the city, but that took 20 minutes in
traffic or longer. Then we passed La Guardia, El
Torno, and arrived at Angostura, where the road is no longer straight. Our driver seemed to zip past every car. I was surprised that we passed the house with
the peacocks, one of my mental landmarks, in less than two hours. From there it
was just past Las Cuevas and a little waterfall and we were in Samaipata. He did the entire drive in less than two and
a half hours.
I wasn’t in the house five
minutes before I was heading to the Plaza.
It was not even 10:30! We had
driven so fast that we made it 30 minutes early. Samaipata is small. That means restaurants don’t serve a lot of
people. The girl working at the Café
1900 looked surprised that I wanted lunch at 10:30. They wouldn’t start serving until 11:30. So I’d just have to wait.
That is about the time that the
trufi driver came up to me in the Plaza.
It is a small town, easy to see people over and over again. He said thank you.
“What for?” I asked.
“I was just told that about five
minutes after we drove through La Guardia that they shut down the highway. If you hadn’t have done what you did, we’d be
in La Guardia waiting in the hot sun all afternoon.”
The cool breeze, under the shady
trees of the plaza hit my face. I could
imagine baking in the tropical sun, instead of sitting in the shade of the
Samaipata plaza.
I saw two other passengers of the
trufi drive that afternoon. I wonder if
they knew that the highway was closed?
I don’t care. The hammock is calling me.
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