Bolivia volunteering

I'm in Cochabamba and first I stayed at hostel Buenos Aires and wanted to find volunteer work. I heard about an organisation Sustainable Bolivia, so I stopped by there and were lucky. They offered me three different opportunities and I chose the energy one. ;-) So in the next days I had a visit in the organisation CECAM and learned about what they do and started work the very next day.

The organisation is a little family run business and has an open air workshop in the back garden of the house. They build solar ovens and efficient wood burning stoves. I started helping with office work especially translating from or into English for correspondence with other countries companies, organisations, volunteers etc. Further I continued updating their facebook page which was actually an easy job and then I helped with some new projects in a suburb of Cochabamba. We provided food and medical support to impoverished families in Villa Esmeralda. I as well donated some money to build five wood burning stoves for five selected families.

It was good to see how the people there are thankful for the work we did and it was heart-touching to see when a dentist, who helped us for free, checked the kids teeth.

The whole time I was living in a house with seven other volunteers which was really nice. I had a home for a while with my room that I shared with Justine, a french girl, a kitchen and a TV in the living room. Every week we had shared dinners with all other volunteers in the main house. We were appr. 25 people plus some local friends. Me and another German girl cooked once a typical dish from home. The weekends we went out for party or visited different places close to Cochbamba. Besides shopping on the big local market or hanging with friends it was a welcome change from the work.

First trip was to Tupiza, the wild west of Bolivia. I had a long weekend and did a two day horse back riding trip. The landscape was so stunningly beautiful and I have never seen anything like it before. Canyons, rock formations and those colours, so intense in blue, yellow, red and green. It was great wherever I looked, just my but didn't like the horse ride that much! ;-) But it was worth it.

A few weekends later we went to Santa Cruz and from there, after visiting the zoo, to Samaipata. That's a little village in the rain forest and with one of the most eastern Inca sites. The ruins were nice and offered good views over the mountains and valleys around. A lovely weekend with friends.

Another 'fin de semana' we went to Torotoro national park. What a weird place, the landscape shows formations where you can see what tectonic geology means.

It looks as the earth just moved into that position recently and not thousands of years ago. We crawled through a very narrow cave, hiked into a canyon and saw some dinosaur footprints. They looked quite real, so I was very impressed!

We hiked in Pico Tunari national park what is right next to Cochabamba, met many new people from Cocha and international.

And I went to La Paz a few times to just enjoy good food and party. This city is so breathtaking and not only because of the altitude. ;-)

Further we took part at the Aymara new years party and celebrated into the year 5520. We got up to meet the local people on a hill to dance around the fire and to welcome the sun the first day of the new year. We expected a llama sacrifice, but luckily there wasn't one, only some herbal and alcohol gifts for Pacha Mama, the god of the earth.

I had a great time in Cocha and met so many great people, thanks to everybody that made my time so special. And it felt good to give at least a little help and support to some of the people there. After a great laving dinner and three days of partying, I left Cocha for my last tour and into Peru.

First Justine and me travelled to Sorata, a little town in the mountains north of La Paz. It was a curvy ride because we went from 4500m down to 2700m and we got the most amazing views. We could see down the valley into the rain forest at 1000m and up to the snowy peaks of 6500m. The altitude difference was huge and the landscape stunning.

We wanted to hike to a lagoon but because the taxi dropped us at a wrong start point we walked and walked and found only a little pond. 1,5h turned into 4h hiking uphill and the 4000m lagoon was suddenly 5000m high. Well, it was so beautiful so we didn't mind that we hiked for 7h instead of 4.

After that beautiful side trip into the mountains we went back to La Paz and met some of our volunteer friends from Cochabamba, they came to party with us and to visit Lake Titikaka together. We stayed at the Wild Rover where the bar is next door and where we started the night out with some drinks. When the bar closed at two we went to a club and I got home last, early in the morning. But after a shower and breakfast I was fit again to continue.

We took a bus to Copacabana and enjoyed the fresh trout from the lake for dinner. Next morning we took the ferry to Isla del Sol and started to hike over the whole island. We saw some ruins in the north and followed the path towards south with amazing views over the deep blue coloured lake and the snowy peaks of the Bolivian mountains in the back. It's beautiful and it was warm in the sun.

After three hours we got to the village in the south where we found a little place for the night.

Next morning we got up to see the sunrise from the view point what was freezing, but so lovely in reward. Then we had breakfast in the sun and took the ferry back to Copacabana.

We ate another trout and enjoyed the sunny afternoon. Then it was time to say goodbye! Everybody went into a different direction and I left Bolivia to Peru.

I was sad and happy.

After three months Bolivia, I loved the country and wished I could stay longer, but I was as well excited to continue and see Peru with famous Machu Picchu! Just, everyone please go and see Bolivia, it's great!