Errands to Run, Pottery & Traditional Supper

Sorry for not posting yesterday, we got in a little late and there were 15 new roommates in our guest house so it was a little hectic around here.  We had to run around and drop off some of the school supplies, soccer balls and toques that we brought down here to a couple of other group homes and see how some of the other homes run.  The morning looked like it was going to be a bit of a waste because we couldn't seem to get a hold of Ken to get things going, but luckily, one of our roommates from Bolivia was kind enough to offer to teach the us all how her family makes perogies.   Sounds funny right?  Wrong.  Nancy is one of many German descendants in Bolivia who still hang on to most of the German cooking and way of living.  Most of them are Mennonites whose families came here when WWII broke out and most live on farms or farming communities.

Nancy is staying here while she goes to University but goes home every weekend and brings back food items from her farm.  This week, she happened to bring in a bunch of fresh cheese curd, and offered to show us how they make their perogies with it and share them for lunch.  Any chance to eat fresh perogies is a yes for us, so we took her up on the offer.  They were excellent and about 4 times the size of the ones we eat in Canada.

After lunch, Ken came over, and we packed up the stuff for the homes and headed out.  We have been trying to spread the wealth out over more than just the places we have been teaching, since there are lots of places that need supplies and it gives us all a chance to see how the different places do things.  Following the deliveries, we headed out to Cotoca which is about 20 miles out of Santa Cruz and is famed for their pottery.  A fair number of things that are used in everyday life here are still made out of pottery so to show the kids, we took them out to Cotoca to show them how its done.  Pottery is so important to Cotoca that they have a giant statue on the way into town of a lady making pottery.

We spent some time looking at the pottery which was very well done, and usual, very cheap by Canadian standards.  It was once again really hot, and Lukas started to have a migraine, so we grabbed some cold drinks and headed back to Santa Cruz.

It was getting late and we were all hungry when we got back.  Everybody eats at around 8 in the evening here which is hard for us since we are used to a schedule, but we have managed to keep the kids from gnawing their hands off with lots of fruit to hold them over until supper.  We wanted to try some more traditional food, so we headed down to Los Cabanas.  These are a series of thatched roof open air restaurants next to the Pirai River.  It is a very popular heritage site where all of the traditional foods are still prepared.  We didn't have any of Ken's boys with us today, so Ken picked the restaurant.  As you will see, I'm not sure it was the best choice.

We decided to order several different dishes and share them all so we all got to try a bunch of items.  We started with canupes which are a mixture of a salty cheese and yuca flower, baked in a bun form.  These are very chewy but very good.

Almost everything down here has cheese in it or on it, and that is fine by me and really fine by Logan, so then we moved to zonzo or sonso depending on which area of Bolivia you are from.  These are a mixture of mashed yuca and cheese that are then rolled onto a stick and cooked over an open fire or charcoal.  They taste like cheesy mashed potatoes.

Then the meat dishes started arriving.  We had a dish whose name I can't remember which was basically beef shishkebabs, then the fire roasted duck arrived and a dish called pique macho.

I was getting concerned, but luckily, the duck came with the french fries, rice, fried yuca and plantains.  Phew, thought I was going to miss out on those today.  Everything was pretty good, but I can live without the pique macho which is basically french fries, topped with beef, hot dogs, tomatoes, cheese and a boiled egg.  They really eat a fair bit of hot dogs here, but not as hot dogs.  They work them into many of their actual dishes.

The meal went over fairly well, until the end while we were sitting around waiting for our cheque to arrive.  That was when a big white dog walked over from by the kitchen, lifted his leg and urinated on the chair of the table next to us.  Made for a real conversation piece to finish the meal off with.

We got back home around 9 to find the place full of Americans who were staying over until their flights home this morning.  All of which wanted to use the internet connection (very slow/many people = too slow to imagine).  We put the kids to bed, but the talking and banging around in the kitchen kept them up pretty late.

We are teaching again today, and will be having a quiet evening in tonight because we will be packing to go to Samai Pata this weekend as I mentioned.  There won't be any internet to be had up there, so don't expect any posts until Monday.  I am sure I will have a few things to say when we get back.