Trip from Cochabamba to Tupiza May 2012 Part 1

We are on our way to Tupiza.  This a mountain pass about two hours
from Cochabamba.  Bolivia has mountains after mountains.

Our first gas stop was in Oruro.  This is the pickup we bought.  A Toyota Tacoma.

 

We saw many mountain farms and villages.  The fences are built from rocks.

Potosi was were we stayed the first night.  We visited with the Elders and
delivered some packages and mail to them.  This is a mining town.  They mine silver here.

We parked the truck here for the night in a high walled
locked gate parking area.  You do not leave your automobiles
parked on the streets at night anywhere in Bolivia. Lloyd is
standing by an old adobe wall in the parking area.

An early morning  view of Potosi.  Most towns are built on the hillside.

The streets are very narrow in Potosi.  When these buildings were built they did
not plan for cars and buses.  We stayed in the Hotel El Turista on the right.
It was early May and it was very cold that night.  The elevation is about 13.000.

This is the Statue of Christ on  a hill in Potosi.  Every town has some kind of  statue.

What the country looked like between Potosi and Unyuni.
Not snow on the hills but alkalie. We are getting close to
the world famous Uyuni Salt Flats.

We saw thousands of llamas on our trip.  Here is a unique spotted one.

A woman with her herd of burros along the road. 

Service Days with Members Part 1

We helped stack corn for Ernesto & Lillian Catacata in Quiriza

We stacked the corn in a area near their house

Ernesto with his tractor he bought last year and a wagon full of corn

Ernesto is loading from the field.  He has strong arm and legs to do this.
He walked up a narrow board with his arms full.

This is the field where he was hauling from.  They cut it and let in dry
in these tepee shaped stacks for about a month.

Ernesto and Lilliana Catacata.  They are good members of the Quirza Branch.
They have four children.  Three girls and one boy.
They are standing in their garlic field. 

This is their alfalfa field.  Their farm is about 10 acres near to the river.

The grass grows tall by the river.  Lloyd knows a lot about
grasses, but he wasn't sure what kind this is.

We washed up for lunch by their home.

Another fun day for us was with the Soza family.  This is by their house.
They are drying the corn. There were 3 different kinds here.

This is the kitchen where they cook their meals. An open fire and dirt floor.

This  is the oven just outside the kitchen door.

Another view of the home and the drying corn,

Adam Soza and his puppy.

We went out to where they had stacked the corn and our job was to pick the ears
off the stalks and put them in sacks.  The missionaries from Tupiza and Villazon
helped the family.

Wilson Soza gave us a wooden tool to help shuck the ears off the stalks.
This was a dusty job.  But we filled several sacks with different kinds of
corn.  The ears were not too big, because this is dryland corn.  They
had a good crop this year because there was plenty of rain.

Adam with Lloyd and I.  We have a few ears in our sack.

We took our sacks back to the house and he started dumping them out
to sort them and start them drying.

Tupiza / Quiriza / Chifloca June 2012

A young boy riding his burro on the road to Quiriza

They still haul the corn from the fields on the burros
What a load!!

Some horses going down the river in Tupiza

Lloyd and spent a day in Quiriza helping in the corn harvest
We stacked the corn up so it could dry

We helped Ernesto and Lilliana Catacata
They have a tractor and wagon

We washed up at the house for lunch

The statue of Christ on the hill in Tupiza

Lloyd and Kristie  with Guadalupe Torres of Quiriza Branch
She is preparing to go to the Temple in Cochabamba for her
own endowment in June

Memembers of the Quiriza Branch on Mother's Day

We wash our pickup in the river on P-day
It is usually a pretty busy place

We drove to Chifloca one day  This is the house Lloyd lived in as a
young missionary.  

The school in Chifloca

The children came up the hill from the school yard , when they found out Elder Bradshaw had candy

We walked up the valley to look at the ditch  the missionaries helped the people
of Chifloca build to get irrigation water to their crops when Lloyd was there on
his first mission.  This is the ditch they needed dynamite to build.  So the missionaries wrote to the Mission
President and asked for money to buy dynamite and he sent it to them.  The ditch
is all cemented today and the people are still using it.

We visited with Louisa Avan.  She was baptized by  Elder Bradshaw on his first mission to Bolivia.

She is 82 years old.  We think she remembered Elder Bradshaw.

Another load of corn on a burro 

The view out our front door.  The sun is coming up and the moon still shining.