Riding a cable car to Jesus

Day 19- Failed plans and visiting Jesus

We woke to find that our Saturday was plagued with clouds. We were to hike the mountains behind the house today and were determined not to let the questionable whether stifle our plans. We were to go hiking with one of the young doctors from the hospital Daniel. At 11pm we arrived at the hospital armed with a picnic ready to start our journey. Daniel relayed with much disappointment that he could no longer go as he had other plans that he had forgotten. Unfortunately, it would be unsafe to continue on our journey without a male and we had to abandon our plans. We ate our picnic in the house and deliberated over what to do instead.
The Trufi strike had ended overnight and we discussed making the trip into the city to see the statue of Christ perched on a hill. By this time it began to rain. We decided against climbing the hill and decided to take the cable car to Jesus instead. Tiffany have got into the habit of asking "...but do you trust a ______ in Bolivia?". We would ask this of many things serious; taxi, policeman, ATM etc and many not so serious things; fried chicken, pram, ferris wheel, chinese food? I felt that cable car fell into the more serious catergory. I made sure to inspect the integrity of the cable and pray over the cabin before we entered. At the top we made the rest of the hike up to see the statue of Christ. He loomed over us peering down watchfully protecting the people of Cochabamba.
Many bolivians took photos of the christ and then took photos of us white girls getting photos of the christ. We waited for them to open the gate to the stairwell that climbed up inside the statue. While we waited we decided to get a drink at a little cafe. Sitting in the plastic coca-cola chairs at the cafe was a bride and groom hurriedly eating a meal with their photographier. They eventually made their way up to the statue and had wedding photos with Jesus.

Finally the gate opened and we climbed up very rickety stairs first to jesus' hips, then into his stomach and finally into his chest. It was very dark inside of jesus and smelt like candy and urine...We took some photos from Jesus and then made our way slowly back down. I can now literally say that I know what it is to live in Jesus.

Our pilgrimage to Jesus had made us hungry and we made our way to a quaint little colonial style french cafe in the city. I am all for experiencing the food of that country but this place was just to cute to walk by. Cafe Paris was divine! We knew that we must have stumbled upon a good thing when we walked inside and found the cafe was full of european travellers. They sat at tables smoking and sipping coffee while playing cards, using the wireless or discussing the differences in their accents.

We found a little table in the corner and drooled over the menu. We each ordered coffee and crepes. To our surprise bolivians make incredible crepes. It was delicious! The total of the bill for this outstanding food for all for of us was less than $10US. I felt like I was ripping them off considering I had enjoyed it sooooo much! It was definetly a winner! I recommend it if any of you ever travel through this way lol

Before we left the city we found a DVD store...to our dismay all the DVDs were pirated. We found all sorts of movies there. Many that havent even been released to DVD yet. That night we watched a copy of Date Night that we bought. It was horrific quality. The sound was terrible! I felt like I was watching the movie from a great distance. We also discovered that what we thought was a copy of Step up 3 was actually another movie called Street Dance and the blurb on the back didnt match either movies. I guess it serves us right for buying pirated DVDs.

To her amazement Tiff found a DVD called 'Cool As Ice' which get this...stars Vanilla Ice. Who would be crazy enough to make a movie starring Vanilla Ice? Its byline is "When a girl has a heart of stone, there's only one way to melt it...Just add ice". Sounds like a Sundance film festival winner! Apparently it lives up to expectations and is the most unashamedly lame movie ever put to film! Tiff and Ray had discovered it and said it was full of laughs! I looking forward to it...let me share with you the literary genious of the blurb (obviously someone's opinion not the original blurb) on the DVD case...

" 'When a girl has a heart of stone, there's only one way to melt it...just add ice.' Take a few minutes to let that statement sink in people, because it makes just about as much sense as the movie does. 1991 was a big year for Vanilla Ice- aka V-ice aka Robert Van Winkle- he is already enjoying success from having rapped his way into the charts, then he made a cameo in "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: Secret of the ooze" in which he performed the "Ninja Rap" on stage. Amazingly, he was denied an oscar for this brilliant freestyle musical performance, but that didnt stop Ice. He had another ace up his sleeve (though I'm sure he'd call it an "ice up his sleeve") in the form of his starring role in Cool as Ice. Sadly, for the Winkle man, it would be his last starring role as well. So let's excavate this buried treasure about a rebel rapper who's gonna show the world that he's made of...ICE."

Yes a quality movie, from a quality DVD store.