Happy New Year!
January 4, 2010
Well, 2010 already, huh? I remember thinking how anything past 2000 was _so_ far away, and I couldn´t even imagine it. And we don´t even have use of any of the amazing things that the ¨Towards 2000¨ or ¨Beyond 2000¨ shows would have us believe. Whatever happened to those robots that were going to do our housework for us?!
New Years Eve in Sucre
I hope your New Years Eve was a fun one. There were 5 of us celebrating in Sucre, Bolivia – Kate, Jordan, Kate´s friend Staja, Staja´s friend Nicola and me. Unfortunately for this holiday it was me not feeling so well again. What is going on with my body?! I was however well enough to go out for dinner and eat plain carbs and sit around drinking hand-made limonada until about 11pm. We all headed to the central plaza – the 25 de Mayo that every Bolivian town and city seems to have. I think it´s related to one of the revolutions…but I´ll have to check on that one.
The square was packed, with a band playing. There were plenty of little stalls selling confettii or fireworks or food or grapes. The significance of the confettii passed us by, but everyone threw it all over everyone else at midnight. We even had a few girls throwing it over us so we wouldn´t miss out on the action. The significance of the grapes is that everyone needs to have 12 grapes – one for each month of the year – so that on the strike of midnight you eat the grapes as quickly as possible, whilst making a wish as you eat each one. Your wishes should then come true as each month rolls around in 2010. Another Bolivian New Years tradition we all followed was that if we wanted love in 2010 we had to wear red undies and if we wanted money we had to wear yellow undies. Not telling which colours we wore! You could even wear a pair of each if you wanted!
The Bolivians believe that whatever you do on New Years Day will be what happens for the rest of the year. So Nicola chose not to eat sugar, all the others went for a walk, Kate and Staja ate home-made chocolate balls and Jordan felt a little seedy from the night before! It appears that my 2010 will be characterised by lots of sleep (and therefore less tiredness?), good times with friends and good food. Sounds great to me!
Kate and her craving
One of the highlights of being here in Sucre with Staja and Nicola has been the food we have been cooking. Staja is a vegetarian, like Kate, and has found that cooking is easier than finding good vege food in any of the restaurants. Fortunately the hostel has a 2-burner cooker we can use. So the day starts for most of us with yummy porrige with bananas, saltanas and nuts and soy milk. Jordan´s more of a Fruit Loops girl. Then a cup of tea with soy milk (such a luxury!). Luch has been yummy brown bread rolls Staja and Nicola have found with a variety of yummy toppings, and dinners have been amazing. Kate has been craving chick pea curry with brown rice for the last 3 weeks, and finally she got her wish! Last night was a dhal and I think tonight red bean tortillas have been planned. Eating out has not been nearly as good, so we´ll stick with cooking.
We will now all be in Sucre until Tuesday when I think we all disperse to different parts of Bolivia and Peru, except for Staja who we hope will not feel too lonely. Kate heads to Peru for the start of her Machu Pichu and jungle adventure, Jordan and I head to the silver mines in Potosí and then on to the Salt Flats near Uyuni for 3 days, and Nicola heads north to do some WWOOFing – Willing Workers On Organic Farms – in an indigenous community. It´s been a real treat to be all together in the same place for quite a few days.
