Trip to Tarabuco

I’ve written about Tarabuco before, one of the isolated towns we preach in. It’s also a popular market town and tourist trap. I’d been there for my volunteer work many times, most of the week it’s a sleepy mountain village. Sundays are a completely different story. I went with the four french sisters, we arrived about nine thirty and the town was already abuzz. It’s nice at first to have such a variety, until you realize what a tourist trap it is and how much they overcharge. Haggling is expected and even necessary if you want to get a fair price.

We walked around, people watching until lunch time. They wanted to go to a restaurant that was full of tourists...thinking that it must be good and ‘safe’ for their stomachs since other foreigners were there. Not wanting to rock the boat I went along. After waiting for close to a century a little girl brought us our soup, but she got distracted before bringing them all. A old typical Tarabuco man staggered out with the last soup and all I could think of was the remark I’d heard many times that they rarely if ever bathe. The little girl informed us he was the ‘cook’. Then Gaelle found two hairs in her food and we saw an unidentifiable dead stuffed animal through the kitchen door. To top off the trip on the bus ride home there was a bag of live chickens under our feet, but we didn’t realize they were alive until one of the french girls slightly stepped on them. Days like that all you can say is, Welcome to Bolivia!