Recently, we went into the rain forest part of Santa Cruz and hiked a beautiful trail with two of the guys we work with. Due to the language barrier we thought we were going to some local park, but this place was anything but a local park. It was down a one way dirt road through several streams before we got out of our truck and started hiking. The walk was amazing! Everything was so green and they took us to some waterfalls and pools. Once we walked up as high up the waterfalls and trails as we could there was this pool of water that collected from a
tall waterfall. Then our buddies said we could start swimming. At first it seemed like a joke because that's what they always do along with Steven and I with them. But once we got in it was so fun. I have never before had such a beautiful scenery to swim in. I was very happy we were able to go to that waterfall.
We have drilled a total of 4 wells at this point. The wells have been about 2 hours from Santa Cruz. The last 2 wells have been 80 meters down and have taken all of 2 days to drill each one. We had a problem with the last well we drilled, so we had to re-drill it. Therefore we were back in the area of many Mennonites. We learned a lot more about them, like that they have rules that women aren't able to go to school past a certain age and just a lot of other things added on past what the Bible addresses. Some people run away from this life style and live elsewhere. You can always tell who are still in it and who has left because if you're still apart of the Mennonites then you wear really clean overalls with a collared shirt. Since all of the males in the religion wear that attire then since Steven and I are dressed in our normal work clothes they thought we were run away Mennonites. The amount of dirty looks we have been given is surprising and I believe they have predominantly been from the German Mennonites. We were really hoping we knew how to speak German so we could play the part better.
For some reason we come to Bolivia and then try things that we could have tried all along in the States. Steven and I have found out how much we like Shwarma's. There is a little Shwarma restaurant downtown from us. We almost like making Shwarma puns as much as the food its self. Another thing that I have personally made here that Steven hasn't though has been PB&J in a tortilla. I would recommend it, especially if you find yourself drilling a well in South America.
This is our last week in Bolivia. Next Wednesday we're taking about a 20 hour bus ride back to La Paz. From there we will either be taking a bus to Arequipa, Peru or a plane to Lima, Peru. Bolivia has been amazing, but I am really excited to see Peru and have 2 more months of adventure.