Adventures in Uyuni (Part 1)

  This month our family was able to take the trip of a lifetime to Uyuni. For those of you who have never heard of such a place this blog will be an education about one of the most amazing places in South America.

    Joining our family for our five day journey were Elyssa and Lauren, friends of ours visiting from Oregon, Victoria and Lydia, volunteers with Casa de Amor, also our friends!!
    We left Sunday at about noon in a bus headed for Oruro, about a four hour journey. The bus was very comfortable and actually fun to travel in. The roads here in Bolivia are very sketchy at times and getting out of the Cochabamba valley by any road is going to be full of windy, steep, two lane highways. People here prefer to travel at night so they can't see what the roads are like! I think ourselves and a couple other gringos were the only ones awake in the whole bus, even though it was in the middle of the day! Bolivians can sleep anywhere, anytime!

There's a road on the edge of that mountain. Can you see it?

Myles and Clancy 

Victoria, Emily, and Rudi on the bus

In Ororu we were scheduled to take the 7 o'clock train to Uyuni and had plenty of time to take in the quaint town of Oruro. We did a bit of shopping in the local mercado, a minature version of our "La Concha", then took a truffi to the main plaza that was very beautiful. Dinner choices were limited because most of the places are closed on Sundays. We ate a place that was fast and easy, that is kinda the Bolivian version of McDonald's, but way classier. I was feeling the elevation and did not have much of an appetite!
Oruro is situated on the Altiplano and the elevation is around 12,000 ft. The altiplano is a flat plain at a high elevation surrounded by the Andes mountains, it is very large and stretches for hundreds of miles to the north and south. The people are very friendly in Oruro and seemingly accustomed to many tourists. Oruro's truffi system was a lot like Cochabamba, but the truffi's were a lot more organized with color schemes and the truffi's were more professional looking and up to date!

Loved this Armadillo!

Enjoying the beautiful plaza in Oruro

At 7 p.m. our train left for Uyuni. If we were expecting the Amtrak we would have been very disappointed! Rudi estimated that we traveled at about 60 km (35 mls per hr) per hour! The rails were not super even and we clickety clacked our way across the countryside until our arrival at 3 am in the morning in Uyuni. It seemed that we stopped at every pueblito out there, so it was VERY slow going at times!

All Aboard

Clancy and Clara ready for adventure!

Inside the train...pretty snazzy!

A very tired Rudi and I scoped out the hotel situation while the group stayed with the baggage. Once we had a place secured, we all piled into the three rooms with a total of eight beds, for the rest of our short night! It was definitely colder in Uyuni then Coch, but refreshingly so. All of the hotel rooms in this particular hotel did not have private bathrooms, so it felt more like a hostal then a hotel. Since all of the bathrooms for the whole journey were not private and co-ed, I think each of us spotted some European or other in their skivvies at some point in the trip! Interesting for us ultra private Americans who are not used to sharing space so up close and personal. The majority of people taking this trip are from Europe, but we also met people from Australia, Israel, and Asia. We met people from Germany, Holland, Switzerland, France, and Spain. Everyone was very friendly and respectful our whole journey!

In the morning Rudi shopped around for a guide service, of which there are plenty, to take us out on our three day adventure. We had read lots of reviews online and it really is a mixed bag as far as guide services goes. We chose to go with a company called Tunupa Tours. The twelve of us divided into the two 4X4 jeeps driven by Gustavo and Poli (nickname for a much longer and not understandable name!). Our first stop was the "Train Graveyard". The kids had fun climbing all over the various old broken down trains and we had fun taking pictures of them.

L. to R. Emily, Victoria, Lauren, Ruth, Paula, Elyssa, Clara, Clancy, Myles, and Lydia
All of our "kids" for the trip!

Lauren and Elyssa

We then headed to the Salt Flats that make this tour so famous. On the edge of the Salt Flats they harvest the salt. They pile it into piles for the water to drain out of the the salt before they take it away to sell.

Emily modeling the salt piles!

Clancy holding someone on his hand!

Because the salt flats are so vast and all the same color you can take amazing optical illusion pictures. We had a lot of fun taking various pictures...lots more to come in this blog.

You can see it in this picture that the salt has this amazing and orderly pattern of hexagons all over it. It reminded me of the pattern that bees make in honeycomb. Our driver told us that the shape is made by the salt "breathing". Seeing this shape and the perfection of the design made me think of the verse in Psalms, "the fool has said in his heart there is no God". How could something this amazing in nature just have happened by chance without a creator? You truly would have to be a fool to believe that!

 I wish we would have known about this place on the tour where there are a bunch of flags from various countries. There was not one from the U.S. It would have been fun to have brought one and put it there. So for the future, you Americans who are going to the Salt Flats, take an American flag along with you for this spot! The wind was blowing so hard that it was whipping them to shreds and many were just barely hanging on!

Our lunch location below the volcano, Tunupa!

For lunch we ate at a a hostel made partly of salt in a little pueblo beneath the volcano Tunupa. Each meal on our journey was served on glass plates, and we drank out of glass cups, and ate with real silverware. Bolivians really know how to recycle and hardly ever use disposable anything. I think it is more out of saving money rather than saving the earth, but it was sure nice not to eat off paper stuff even in the boonies! They would wash up the stuff at each place we stopped for dinner and the night. (I know that either A. Diane or my mother will write and ask me that detail!!)

Lunch Time!

Clancy decided to "sample" the wall to make sure it was salt! We hope no one else licked that exact spot!!

Yummm! Salt!!

After lunch with Tunupa in the background!

My sweet youngest three! Adorable in their shades!

 Our first sight of Flamingos was at this lunch spot. They hang out on the edge of the salt flats in about six inches to a foot of water....salty water. We saw thousands more than this on our journey!

Flamingos

I love this shot Rudi took of this Llama with her baby!

After lunch it was back on the salt again. We had fun taking a lot more pictures and getting slightly sunburned! We had made sure that everyone had sunglasses, because the salt can actually blind you for a short time, like snow can!

The Mighty Elyssa holding FOUR people in her hands!

Myles jumping over our car! Cool!

The Giant Clancy

We tried taking pictures of all the kids jumping, but this was the best we could come up with. Lauren and Elyssa got "best jumpers award" with Victoria coming in second!! I thought it was a funny picture either way!! 

One, Two, Three, JUMP!

 How many guys do you know that can hold their whole family in their hand. My hubby is soooo amazing!

In the palm of Daddy's hand!

 Our driver insisted on taking this picture of Emily jumping. It looks like she finally figured it out.

Soaring Emily!

Towards the center of the ice is a place called "Fish Island". It is called that because it looks like a fish from the air. The Inca's used this place for sacrifices and their worship. It was rather odd with Cactus all over it and Llamas. For some reason the salt seemed so much like snow that it was hard to wrap my mind around the fact that it was really salt. It made the cactus seem out of place to me as well.

Fish Island

Fish Island Llama

And then we were off the salt and onto the next part of the trip. We headed off onto dirt roads and fields of Quinoa with mountains surrounding them. This part of Bolivia is where they grow the Quinoa that Bolivia is famous for. Quinoa requires little to no water. These fields were all tilled and planted, but the plants hadn't come up yet. They plant in November and harvest in March. Our driver told us that the plants grow to be at least five to six feet tall. It was hard to believe that in what seemed a barren wasteland, at such a high elevation anything could grow, let alone one of Bolivia's largest crops!!

Quinoa Field

We hurtled pell mell on roads that were just barely roads to our next destination, The Salt Hotel, where we would have dinner and spend the night. Our guides rarely followed each other exactly on each others tail, because the dust was overpowering. Instead they space out from each other or made up their own roads beside each other. It wasn't unusual to be about ten to twenty minutes behind the other car at times.

As we made the turn off to head over to the tiny town where our hotel was situated we practically ran over the other car that was in front of us, parked to the side of the road, with the front left wheel completely sheered off... rim and all. Keep in mind that these drivers are driving very fast on very bumpy road for hours and hours. This could have happened when they were going much faster, as they had slowed down to make the turn off. It was all in a days work for these drivers. They "borrowed" bolts from the other tires and proceeded to put the tire back on in the middle of a HUGE dust and wind storm. We were/are thanking the Lord that everyone was kept safe and that nothing terrible came of this little accident!

The Salt Hotel was unlike anything any of us had experienced before. The walls were made of salt bricks, the tables, chairs/stools, bedstands, and floors were all of salt as well.

Upon our arrival to the hotel we were served hot tea and crackers. A lot of the guests were playing games. One table had a rousing game of Settlers of Catan going. It must be a world famous game!

For dinner we had soup and bread first and then Llama steaks for the first time in our lives, as well as French fries... a very balanced diet! The Llama steaks were amazingly delicious! Paula sat and chewed on the bones that were left over she liked it so much!

Salt block tables and Chairs

Ruth and Paula making "Salt Castles"

Everything seemed super clean and white! It was a bit hard for me to sleep, as I had a bit of a cold and had to breathe out of my mouth. It seemed like I was breathing in salt all night long. I bet it was super healthy for me!

The Beautiful Salt Hotel 

I will try to get the next days of our journey on the next blogs...I hope it doesn't take me as long as this one!! Stay tuned for more Uyuni Adventures!!

Rudi and Carla and Family!

Visitors from Home!

At the end of September two of our friends from Oregon came to visit us, Lauren Dealy and Elyssa Emel. Elyssa is one of our employees at our coffee shop in Yoncalla and Lauren and her family go to our church. Lauren has also been a good friend of Emily's for a long time. It has been a real treat to have visitors from home! It hasn't been good for our Spanish though, because we talk so much in English! Much to Rudi's chagrin I have stayed up late talking way to many nights since they have arrived!

Lauren helping out with Leo

Lauren has been able to help us with the kids schoolwork, as well as help with the cooking and care of the little children. She is always available to help, but never in the way... the perfect combo! Lauren is going to be staying with us until January.

 
Elyssa originally came to Bolivia to visit just us, but our local private Christian school found out that she was coming for a visit and asked her to fill in between fifth grade teachers for them. Elyssa recently graduated with her teaching degree, so she came very qualified for the job! Many an evening would find her at the kitchen table grading papers! On the weekends we had fun going out to eat or going to some local tourist type things. The last two weeks, of the six she was here, she was free from teaching and we were able to do more stuff during the day with her!

Elyssa hard at work in Bolivia

 Almost every Saturday morning our children would go to play soccer and frisbee at Carachipampa School's field with Elyssa and Lauren and at times others.

Some of my favorite times have been the late night talks and game playing! In the picture below we are playing "Gimps" and Elyssa and Clancy won time after time!

 And, of course, our guests were able to help out with the "Casa Kids"!

 Rudi took all of the kids and Elyssa and Lauren up to see the hot springs in the mountains above our house. On the way home they stopped and had Chicharron!

Enjoying Chicharron for the first time!

The last week of Elyssa's stay we were able to take an extended five day trip to Uyuni. It was the adventure of a lifetime. My next blog will be about our time there!
We saw Elyssa off last Sunday night. It was such a blessing having her visit and we will miss her much! We are thankful that Lauren gets to stay with us a couple months longer. The way time flies we will be saying goodbye to her all too soon!

A Birthday Party for Paula

At the beginning of September, our youngest, Paula Jane, celebrated her fourth birthday in style! I thought I would share some of the photos of the event with you all! 

In true Bolivian style Tia Techy and Javier hired a clown for the event. (Bolivians love clowns for every occasion) Thankfully, he was quite tame and everyone had a great time with him there. It took a bit for Paula to warm up to him, but after just a little while she did!

The Clown in his Mickey Mouse outfit!

Strike a Pose, Paula and S.

Fun and Games

Ruth and B. having a great time!

Getting set up for the game!

The clown arranged a game where the children had to run around everyone and then crawl under their teammates legs to reach the prize in the middle. It was a very fun game!

Paula crawling through the leg tunnel!

Prize!

 Then it was time for cake. The clown had us pray for Paula, which I thought was very sweet and we took a group family photo...such as it is!

 It was a smashing success of a birthday party. The only problem is that the rest of the kids, except Emily, would like to have a clown at their birthday parties now!!!

Happy Birthday, Paula!! We love you!!

Our First Year in Bolivia

Yesterday we celebrated our one year arrival in Cochabamba, Bolivia! We celebrated by taking a somewhat official family picture! I don't think it was the kids idea of a good time, but they were good sports about it!

The Rudi Boohers "2013"

It was fun to reminisce about all of the diapers we have changed and bottles we have made. We estimated the diaper count at 4,000 and the bottles at around the same amount! It is also amazing to reflect on how fast the year went for all of us and how the Lord has led us all the way and has had His hand on us every moment. We have been so blessed to be able to care for six children, so far, through Casa de Amor. Three have been adopted and we still have three with us!

The Twins, Katarin and Alison

Leo

Abby with Grampa

Paula and S.

Ruth with S.'s baby sister A.

Our original four "Casa Kids"

We have also bought mountains of veggies and fruits. This pile below cost about $14!

 We have been incredibly blessed to have had Tia Techy work with us this past year. She has become part of the family and we all don't know what we are going to do without her when we go home. Thank you to CDA for providing one of their best employees for us!

Tia with her side kicks Emily and Myles

Lydia from Colorado, Emily, and Lindsey from S. Carolina

 We have also gotten to know the volunteers who have come down to help at CDA. It has been great to be a home away from home for them. Our lives have been enriched by these hard working gals. Kaylee from California was one of the volunteers who came to pick us up at the airport and Camila from Denmark helped me with raising support for our "Diaper Drive"!

Carlee, Kaylee, Emily, Anna, Ruth(on lap), back of Paula, and Elena

Anna from S. California

Danyelle from Texas, Hannah from Louisiana, Carlee from Idaho

Victoria from Texas

We also have been blessed to get to know Jake and Jennifer better, as well as, Vico and Elena! We also have many new Bolivian friends!

All of our children have been thriving and growing up way to fast. They have grown into being a big help around the house with the kids, cooking, cleaning, and even changing diapers AND car tires! We are soooo blessed by our kids everyday! Bolivia has been good for them!

Chow time! Clara with her friend Gracie feeding the boys!

Clancy, Myles, and S. "Mis Guapos Chicos"

Ruth and Clara "Mis Guapas Chicas"

Emily "La Bonita"

Paula "Mi Chiquita Hijita"

I am sure that after I post this blog I will think of a lot of things I should have mentioned about the past year, but I am going to post this anyway and save it for another blog!

We look forward to the year ahead. We look forward to caring for more precious children through Casa de Amor, planting a garden at the boys house, learning lots more Spanish, growing in our relationships with those that God brings into our lives, and just generally enjoying being here in Bolivia!
It has been a good year. Thank you to Casa de Amor for this opportunity to serve and thank you for your prayers for us this past year. Keep it up!!!

Our theme verse this year is Isaiah 40:41 "But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength. They shall mount up with wings as eagles. They shall run and not be weary they shall walk and not faint.". May we serve this year waiting on the Lord to renew our strength!

The Rudi Booher Family "2012" (Yes, Rudi and I have lost weight...Hooray!) On our way to Bolivia!

A Fall and A Bite

The months of August and September brought us some medical adventures here in Bolivia. I can't say that I have enjoyed them very much! I know that Rudi and I are very thankful that our situations were not worse and that our boys are still here with us.

Our first event happened just a few days after Myles' birthday. Rudi with Myles, Emily, and a friend, Franco went out to a Christian campground, that some friends of ours administrate, to play music and share the gospel with a group from the youth orchestra. Myles was playing with a couple friends his age on a zipline that went over and across a valley. Rudi did not feel good about how they were using it without harnesses, but did not want to be a spoilsport and say something about it. We don't know exactly how it happened, but as Myles was letting himself down the rope, he fell from about nine to ten feet. We think he passed out either as he was falling or right before. Thankfully, his right foot took the brunt of the fall before he fell over onto his head. However, because he was passed out he did not break his fall in any way as he toppled onto his head. When Rudi picked him up he was having convulsions and not responding. The next thirty minutes were the scariest, as Myles went into shock and scared many that were attending him. Through it all his pupils looked good, but his lack of response was what was worrying everyone. Rudi called me and asked me to e-mail our family and friends and ask them to pray. They were two hours from the nearest hospital that could care for him and had to go up over a 14,000 ft pass to get there. At this point we also thought that his ankle was for sure broken from the pain that he was in. By the time I met them at the hospital Myles was responding well in both Spanish and English, but was in a lot of pain especially in his ankle. They did full body x-rays, as well as checked him for any signs of concussion. We all were shocked when his x-rays did not show ANY broken bones, not even a slight fracture in his ankle. He also did not show any signs of concussion either. May all the praise and glory go to our God who is a healer. We are so thankful for all the many people who prayed for Myles. I believe God did a work in his body as he was being driven to the hospital.  

Myles and his new black eye!

In the picture above that was as far as he could open his left eye for a couple of days! The doctor said that a cast would be the best for healing the major sprain that Myles had in his ankle. The cast helped keep the the leg still and kept him off it for the first week, before he got a walking cast. The first week Myles tired easily and kept to his bed a lot. Managing the wood crutches was difficult and uncomfortable at best.

The Rustic Crutches

One of the days after after his fall our power went out for the whole day. The kids had fun that night playing games by candlelight. I liked the color of Myles black eye in this picture! Almost Raccoon like, don't you think?

Chess by candlelight

After watching Myles run around with his walking cast on, I was glad that we had put it on him. He was glad when the thing started to fall off a week early! He ended up sawing it off himself. He took it easy the first few days and now is up to full speed again.

Myles running with his cast at Paula's birthday party!

"Look, Mom, no cast"

  Just a few weeks later Clancy got a dog bite on the road by our house. He and Emily were taking a house key down to Victoria and the oldest four House 2 boys. Clancy was looking at them in front of their house waiting, and did not pay attention to the three dogs that were running toward him. Clancy ran right between two of them that were in the middle of a friendly dog tussle and one of the dogs bit him right on the leg. Unfortunately, Clancy was wearing shorts. When Rudi told me that we were going to have to take Clancy to the doctor for stitches I have to say that I was pretty stressed out. Dog bites are nothing to mess with here in Bolivia, as rabies is alive and well.
We took Clancy to a local clinic. I really did not want them to put stitches in the wound, as I have heard that that seals the bacteria in. I tried to communicate this to the doctor, but he was concerned about how open the wound was. While Rudi and I were out looking for a public bathroom to use (the clinic had a bathroom, but it was locked:) he went ahead and stitched him up with four stitches.

The wound the night of the bite. He also had a deep puncture on the other side.

The next day we went to another hospital to get him started on the rabies shots. Thankfully, that doctor told us that we needed to locate the dogs and report them to the hospital closer to us for observation by them. The series of rabies shots here are one each day for a week and then three more at ten day intervals. While it would be worth it if the risk was there, it is not something that you would sign up for a the drop of a hat!
Emily and our friend, Gladys who lives on our street, spent an evening going from house to house searching for the dogs. They were able to find them about two blocks down our street and Victoria and Angel were able to identify the ones who were in the pack that were running past that evening. After much waiting I was able to contact the right person to come and observe the dogs for rabies. We got the call this week that all of the dogs are rabies free. Praise the Lord!

The Victim!

The first few days Clancy was in so much pain that he could not walk very well and he spent a lot of time relaxing in our armchair. The bite got a bit infected and I was truthfully worried sick about the whole thing. The Lord sent our dear friend Tia Carmen, who used to be a nurse, to come and take out his stitches and to apply some herb poultices on Clancy's leg to draw out the infection. It worked the best of anything. What a blessing. His wound is now almost healed five weeks later. It has taken a long time!

Tia Carmen applying an herb poultice!

Clancy is now back to his regular chore of changing one of the little boys when he gets up in the morning. We always get a kick out of how he insists on wearing these bright orange rubber gloves to do it!

We are so thankful to have both boys fully recovered and doing well! It has been a faith building experience for me. I have had to ponder where my trust is: in the doctors to make my children well or Jehova Rapha, God our healer. At home in the U.S. where the medical care is much more high tech and well done, it is easy to put our trust in the medical system and forget that it is God that heals us. I have had to place my children in God's hands and trust Him alone through these experiences. A stretching and growing experience for me as a mother.