Change of Plans

It was Wednesday, and that normally means out to El Camino boys home, but this morning when we got up, Ken and I both were feeling under the weather, so we called out to the home and made arrangements to move our classes to tomorrow.  By late afternoon, I was feeling much better and everyone was getting pretty bored, so we arranged to have Ruddy (one of Kens boys) take us to the big Wednesday market to look for a couple of things we needed.

Ruddy arrived at about 5:30 which sounds late, but remember, nobody eats until almost 8 here anyways, and we grabbed a taxi to the market.  We were lucky enough to get Mario Andretti's Bolivian cousin as our driver and he got us through the heavy rush hour traffic in record time.  This was accomplished by driving at about 50 miles per hour in the oncoming traffic lane when our lane was backed up.  We all arrived safely so all is well.

The first thing we needed to get at the market was a shirt to replace the one that Roberto (the nice guy who helped us out when Logan split his head open) used on Logan's head.  We had been meaning to do something for him, but he wouldn't have accepted cash for his ruined shirt because that is against the rules of their society, so we figured the least we could do is get him a nice shirt.  We ended up with a nice American Eagle t-shirt (yes, the real thing) which we will drop off tomorrow on the way to El Camino.

We couldn't find the other items we wanted at the market, and most of the fruit vendors had already packed it in for the day, so to thank Ruddy, we asked him what his favorite restaurant was and offered to buy him supper since we were all starving.  Ruddy smiled right away, which i knew meant it was going to cost me, but he happened to choose a restaurant that I had been wanting to go to since we got to Santa Cruz.  He took us to Casa Del Camba, which is widely regarded as the best Bolivian restaurant in the city.  Surprisingly, the prices were not as as bad as I had thought they would be.

First off, the place is huge.  They could probably seat 400 people between the bar area, open air seating, roofed seating and the back area.  The second item is that the menu was all in Spanish (I know, we are in a Spanish country), but this one used a whole bunch of words that we were not familiar with and that Ruddy didn't know the translation for.  We ended up figuring out what most things were by hand signals and animal sounds.  Their menu offered everything from alligator to Argentinian bbq dishes.

We ended up ordering the traditional buffet for 4 which means that we are going to get enough food for 6 hungry adults.  First they brought a big plate of yuca to the table and two plates of salad.  The salad was a nice mix of beans, tomatoes, beets, lettuce and cucumber.  The yuca was the usual deep fried yuca.  Yucka.

After the starters, the rest of the food was brought in earthenware bowls and was an assortment of traditional foods.  We had the rice with cheese (which I still haven't acquired a taste for), a mushy rice with duck, a rice with charque dish, spicy chicken with potatoes, and a stewed beef dish.  There were also some pickled peppers and some hot chili paste.

Every last dish was fantastic.  We enjoyed the stewed beef so much, that we asked Ruddy to order another plate of it.  Little did we know, that we had just ordered an entire meal of stewed beef which also came with more cheese rice, the beef, and another salad.

We managed to eat the majority of the food and got the rest to go.  We arranged for a taxi to take us home and then to take Ruddy home.  On the way, we hit several red lights.  At each red light, there were kids.  Tonight, there were kids juggling, doing devil sticks and just plain begging.  Each light had 3 or 4 kids coming up to the car windows while one of them did their tricks.  At the occasional light you also find an elderly person who just sits there with their hand out as their only means of support.  We have decided to give our change to the elderly people more often than the children, but always try to talk to the kids, especially when we are with Ken because he wants to befriend them and help them get into a home and get them off the streets.

Anyways, it was kind of a wasted day, but everyone is feeling much better now.  So far none of the kids have had any issues at all with the food or the water.  Here's hoping it stays that way.