Sorata

Because Bolivia is celebrating the 3-day extravaganza of Carnaval (consisting mainly of throwing water balloons, spraying each other with foam, and drinking large quantities of anything alcoholic), we decided this would be a good chance to go to the small town of Sorata with a couple friends. Sorata is mainly a place that hikers visit, wishing to enjoy the amazing scenery of this valley town, at the foot of 2 of the highest mountains in the country. The town has remained small and generally impoverished, but the town square boasts about 6 or so little Italian restaurants, aimed at pleasing the handfull of trekkers and other Bolivians who come for a peaceful get-away. Our main goal for the weekend was to enjoy our friends and find a nice trail to hike on. We planned on taking one that wound its way up to a mountain top village and then headed back down to some caves a couple hours from the town we were staying in. After several hours of steady uphill walking, we made it to our destination, enjoyed a snack lunch and questioned the locals how to get down to the caves. Their reply was, "down there!", with a general hand signal to a walking path nearby. We struck out on the path and began heading downhill, but gradually realized we were walking farther and farther away from Sorata. We figured the trail would eventually bend back toward town, but after about an hour of walking in a steady rain, but enjoying immense beauty nonetheless, we decided we should ask again. We actually hadn't come across any people for about an hour, but soon after found a small home with a family gathered outside. Their response to our questioning about how to get to the caves was the same, "go down!". But, this time their hand signals were in the opposite direction of where we were walking. They assured us we would eventually come to a town on the path we were taking, but it was quite a ways away and not anywhere near where we wanted to go. After deliberating about which way we should continue (we had not seen any other paths in the direction they were suggesting), rock, paper, scissors won out with us heading back the way we came. We found the path in no time and happily started our down-hill, muddy decent. Spirits were lifted, as we were all starting to wonder if we'd ever find little Sorata again. About 3 hours of hiking later, soaked through and covered with mud, we realized that the only way back to warm showers and food (about all we could think about at this point) before dark was to hitch a ride with the next truck coming down the road (there was almost no traffic on this rainy holiday). We flagged down a pick-up, jumped in back, and braced ourselves (very literally) for our long awaited return. I had never been so glad to see a run-down hotel and immediately proceeded to take a shower and a long nap. That was definitely the highlight of our trip, encountering hyper, balloon-throwing kids, many pigs, donkeys, and cows, as well as a wonderful display of God's creative genius along the way. My favorite moment was a drive-by foaming that we were victims of, with an old country lady looking on with a huge grin. I think our gringo faces covered with foam made her day.