Bolivian Christmas
I realized it has been 20 years since my last Bolivian Christmas. I completely forgot how they do it down here and it felt great to be part of the celebration here once again. I got to do this more often.

12-24-2003 Xmas Fireworks
Here they call Christmas Eve, "The good night" instead. Everything in the city was open all day. Miguel and I went shopping in the morning to get some last minute gifts for the family and make sure we had everything. Then we swung over to Tio Jorge's house, had some Mate and then went to Tio Adrian's house. Tradition for Christmas Eve is a late dinner. Usually close to midnight or a little before, we had dinner at about 11. The lechon (pork leg) was awesome and the daughters of Tio Ruben got some fireworks. Everyone made phone calls, I talked with my parents when they called and my grandparents from the USA. I got to talk to Novali and Tamara as well.

One of the most fun parts of the night is when my primo Enrique taught me how to ride his motorcycle. He has a big motor-cross bike, and I have never driven one so I wanted to try. I got the hang of it pretty well I thought. I took it for a spin, nearly got run off the road by some cabs and a micro, but the ride was good. I learned to shift the gears and handle it. Good xmas gift from my primo, free bike lesson.

Midnight is show time. Every house in the neighborhood has fireworks, and not just sparklers. Bottle rockets, roman candles, and even big tube shot fireworks as well. It was a non-stop show for about 40 minutes. At this same time everyone starts to do their saludos, kinda like what we do for New Years in the USA. Everyone gets a hug, a kiss on the cheek and told god bless you. We stayed up talking for a while and then off to bed for everyone.

12-25-2003 Christmas Movie
We woke up, had a big family breakfast and then we all went to the house of my Tio Jorge. His family did not come last night, just too many people. But an afternoon BBQ Jorge's place is great. The older male members of the family fought over politics the entire time, and the rest watched SpiderMan. We had some leftover lechon, and some great ribs! It was a feast.

Miguel made plans to take the four little kids to the Movies. He took them to see La Tierra de los Osos, the new Disney movie. While he was doing that the rest of us 'grownups' went to the Picolo (ice cream place) and then I got in line for some Lord of the Rings tickets. It ended up that I waited alone for the tickets. It was a 2 hour wait for the dumb tickets! Here they sell movie tickets by seat number. So after my wait in line the only 7 they had together was the second to front row. At least we got tickets!

We killed time before the movie (I got the tickets at 7, the movie was at 10) going to a internet cafe, getting some food, and just waiting around for everyone to show up. The movie was good. The amount of cell phones going off was insane. Every two seconds, and the entire theater would start with the "sssshhhhh". The theater was also very vivarent, they would clap and cheer many times throughout the movie. The movie went really long, more then 3 hours, we caught a cab and went home. Long, long day.

The girls getting ready to do their fireworks.

Abuelita covering her ears from the sound of the fireworks.

The kids (and Miguel) and playing Nintendo 64.

The lechon... oh man.

The salad and everything else. Got to have llajwa (hot salsa).

The family dinner at Tio Adrian's. Everyone got more then enough, especially me.

Tio Jorge cooking at house on Christmas day.

Everyone getting their full, again.

The meat was so good... I ate too much again.

And then everyone argued about politics. Good ol' Centellas Christmas.

12-26-2003 Trying to Catch a Tan
Miguel and I had planed our trip to La Paz this weekend on a bus. The bus normally takes about 16 hours. However with the bad rain that we had earlier this week one of the bridges gave out (many people died, it was all over the papers here) and now the buses are taking longer. It was already a big expense of my time to be on the bus during my short vacation, and now with the delay we decided to just fly instead. Now it is an expense of my money instead of time, I would rather spend more time doing things and have less money then have more money and have spent nearly two full days of this short vacation on a bus. It is a 45 minute flight.

Getting tickets was an adventure of course as well. We went with abuelito and he had us cut in front of everyone because of the senior citizen law here, but he was not even buying the tickets. It is really cool a law they have, at any place (mostly banks and big businesses follow it) anyone above 65 gets to go to the front of the line. Everyone was looking at us... but I did not care, we had money in had and were in a hurry. Plus we were late to the water park. Side note: those expecting cool La Paz style gifts (llama sweaters, big monolitos, pewter stuff, etc) will be without because of this extra expense on tickets. But no worries, I will bring some coca tea back with me instead, it will make you happy. - News update: we heard buses are taking more then 24 hours to get to La Paz, and some having to stop over night. Good thing we bought the tickets!

My primo Enrique works at a water park, called AquaLand. He is one of the general managers; the place has water slides, fakes waves and lots of excitement. It is one of the things I really wanted to see before leaving, plus a little more sun can't hurt. I need to catch more sunlight on the rest of my body. I am developing a really bad farmer tan from walking around the city all day.

I went with Felipe, Maira, Marcia, Miguel, and abuelito. We had a great time. It started to rain a little, but the sky cleared up and we had an awesome time. I did not get burned! It was Miguel and Abuelito that got the burns, I came out just fine, and more tan. The park reminded me of the Anderson Water park in Saginaw. Except not nearly as ghetto, but surprisingly just as expensive. Tickets were 10 bucks (american) each, and food was about 20 bucks for all of us, and then the rafts and ice cream added another 2-3 bucks per person. That comes to about 120 dollar trip for as family of 6. That is way too much! Good thing our primo Enrique got us free passes!

The park was huge!

Abuelito road the automatic river all day long, and got sun burnt.

In true Santa Cruz fashion... beautiful girls and a bar, even at a family pool.

I stayed back and took the picture of them riding a big inter tube down the slide.

They had a total of 6 large slides.

The gang in the river, Miguel on his way to getting burnt.

Felipe and I rode all the slides, it was great.

Miguel finishing up his burn before we leave.

Afterwards we were beat. The sun has the uncanny ability to drain away your energy. So what was supposed to be a short nap after a tiring day turned into a long ciesta... so I stayed in, had some Paceñas, and watched some Christmas movies on TV with Tio Jorge and Miguel.

12-27-2003 The Curanderos
I am sick, something I ate did not make my stomach very happy. So I am a little bit tired from not sleeping well. All day each member of the Centellas family came and told me what I should be doing to get better. The abuelita had tio Jorge make me some soup. Abuelito gave me some pills he takes when his stomach gets upset. Tio Jorge said I should drink Sprite and crackers, Miguel said no that the gas from the pop will make me worse. Suddenly all the Centellas family is a bunch of doctors. At least I know they all care. Either way, this makes me more glad I am not taking a 20+ hour bus trip!

I am in the airport. Miguel and I arrived early, he just finished his posting and went to get some coffee, I am heading out now to join him as well. Enjoy this post. I will be online even more in La Paz. They have wireless there... YEAH!