Tarata

Written Thursday, February 9, 2012

Today we went to Tarata.  It was about a 40 minute drive from Cochabamba and the ride was gorgeous!  First we went to Frutté, a tea-making place where they harvest fruit, dry it, package it, and ship it.  They dry the tea using either the sun or their big oven named Santiago.  They have all kinds of fruit tea and “mate” (herbal tea).  Tea is really big here, not just when it’s cold outside.  All of the teas have special powers, like curing colds.

I think these are dried beets

Next we had the rural drop-off.  My friend Kate (aka Hojita) and I were partnered together and had to find a peach processing plant (Planta de Transformación de Duraznos) in Villa Mercedes.  We were abandoned in the city/town of Tarata (Okay, technically it’s a town (pueblo) but I think it looks like a city since no one has a yard.  Well, some of them do but they all have fences.  I promise it really does look like a city.  See, look at the picture!)

So anyway, Hojita and I asked a guy in his car where we could find the peach plant, and he replied with something neither of us could understand.  “QUE?” …nope, still incomprehensible to the gringas.  We finally understood “far” and asked if we needed a taxi.  He said yes so we went on our merry way, stopping to buy some bread with cheese inside for about 30 cents.  (By the way, bread + cheese might sound like a pretty average combo, but the Bolivians make it DIVINE.)

So we got in a taxi and drove into the campo (I’m talking SERIOUSLY rural, none of this pueblo-that-looks-like-a-city-business).  We chatted with our driver Daniel about Tarata, and he said a lot of people from the campo come to work in Tarata.  He said most of them come in taxis.  We tried to ask about the population of Tarata, but either he didn’t understand or he didn’t know.  I guess I wouldn’t know the population of my town either, except I was curious and looked it up on the internet.

Here's where the taxi dropped us off

About 20 minutes later, we got off in the middle of nowhere (aka Villa Mercedes—the driver didn’t know where the PPP [peach processing plant] was so he just took us to VM).  It was around noon at this point, so everyone was eating lunch and the streets were deserted (though it was really rural so maybe it always is deserted.)  Hojita and I walked down a dirt road for a while…quite a while…until we came across an older lady milking a cow.  She clearly was busy but we awkwardly approached her anyway since we didn’t know if we’d find any other people.

Turns out we came across the nicest lady in Villa Mercedes.  We told her the cows were cute, and tried to ask about the PPP.  She responded but neither of us had any idea what she was saying.  She didn’t seem to mind, and kept telling us stuff, and asked if we wanted some milk from her cow.  We politely declined, but she took some water from an old soda bottle, rinsed a tin cup, and poured us some fresh milk from her cow.  I actually thought it was pretty good, though drinking warm milk is pretty weird.  There were a bunch of peach trees where we were, so we asked about the peaches and if our friend cared for them alone.  Couldn’t understand her answer, but she walked up to the trees and picked us each four peaches!  I told her we had some bread and asked if she wanted to share, but she brushed aside the offer.  We said goodbye (a handshake instead of a kiss on the cheek) and walked back down the road.

It was almost 1pm, and we had to be back in Tarata by 1:30, so we went to the main road again.  There was a church pretty close so we decided to go check it out, but sadly it was closed.  So we called Daniel, our taxi-driving friend.  We were sitting on a bench eating bread, when a man came walking by.  He said a friendly hello and asked if we were from Canada (we saw a couple in a car who asked if we were German—I wondered if asking if someone is from the US could be offensive?).  His name was Carlos and he told us a lot of people from Villa Mercedes go to Arlington, Virginia (vair-HEEN-ee-aa) to work construction.  He said there were 80 families in Villa Mercedes.  He was on his way to a meeting in the central plaza (which we were on the edge of).  I didn’t quite catch what the meeting was about but it had something to do with water.  He invited us to come with him, so we went to the center of the plaza and met the townspeople who were gathering—four women and two men (including Carlos).  The women wore sweaters, traditional knee-length skirts, and straw hats.  We talked a little about Arlington, and one of the women told me her children worked there.  I wanted to ask them about how gender worked in the village, since the women seemed to be invited to the meeting as well as the men, but sadly Daniel had arrived. 

We returned to Tarata and went to the Plaza Principal.  Turns out it was Día de los Copadres, so lots of people came streaming out of the church holding bloody Jesus statues.  A brass band started playing as the procession circled the plaza, stopping at each corner for some sort of ceremony conducted by some sort of religious man.

Lunch was at a restaurant next to a big dam.  There specialty was fish, but I got soy meat instead (They have that in Bolivia!  The one time I tried to buy it with my host mom, it was mad expensive, but I heard it’s usually cheaper than animal meat!)  The restaurant also had a big slide!  A bunch of us went down and it was TOTALLY fun.  (It was mad fast so I screamed a little.)  There were peddleboats and ziplines, but we didn’t have time for them.  But the bathrooms were like a whole bunch of caves.  You had to explore to find an open stall. 

So then I came home on the turismo bus, took el micro (pronounced MEE-CRO) and arrived at my casa (house).  I watched Disney channel with my host sister (High School Musical 3 was on!!)