Punata

Punata

Where to begin..... Our day at Punata had enough material for 2 blogs, and we were only there 3 hours. Before I begin I have to preface with an explanation of transportation in Bolivia. There are 3 types of transportation. Taxi's, Trufi's and Micro's. Taxi's are what you would expect anywhere else, except you may or may not have floorboards or tires with any tread. Most of the cars here run on CNG, compressed natural gas, so some of them have the big tanks in the back or the trunk along with a huge woofer so they can blast their music while you are being transported. If you are going to the airport or need to haul a lot of items, you need to check first for trunk availability. Trufi's are like minivans that have designated routes. They pick up people and let them off  along their route. One of the temple missionaries said a Bolivian lady brought a family name card to the temple. When she looked at the address for the lady it said "Trufi # 10", so Trufi's can also be used for addresses, give or take 5-10 miles. Trufi's are less expensive than taxi's. The bottom of the food chain of transportation are Micro's. They are the size of a small school bus and are painted with bright colors, flames and most of the time a picture of their favorite Virgin  (Guadalupe, Urkupina, Carmen etc) on the back window. Always a lot of fringe and the back end is jacked up. They ascribe to "might makes right" attitude while driving and can often be seen driving on sidewalks, running red lights (always) and cutting people off. Micros were the same when Jack was here in the 70's only they were one step higher on the food chain. 

Micro

 So anyway, back to Punata. It is a small town about 25 miles south of Cochabamba. There are 6 missionaries in the general area. They wanted to set up one of the tiendas at the Tuesday market there so we left about 7:00 am to head out to take it to them. Since it was early, we had to stop for a breakfast Coke (nothing has changed), so Jack pulled over to this little tienda. An old Cholita was out in front in her walker sweeping the sidewalk with a tree branch and yelling at one of her realitives. Since it was obviously hard for her to get around, she asked Jack if he could get his own coke, which he was happy to do. After he got them and was walking out, she yelled at him and told him to stop " Didn't you take two cold ones out of the cooler? Then you need to put two warm ones in the cooler. Don't you think other people want cold Cokes?  The warm coke zeros were on a higher shelf so that you needed to climb a ladder " So now Jack can add tienda stocker to his list of accomplishments!

 We stopped at a light about a block from the tienda and the next thing we knew we had been rear-ended by a Trufi, Coke spraying all over the inside. Jack jumped out and saw that we had very little damage, but the front end of the Trufi was totally smashed in. The driver was really upset and sorry, but said it wasn't his fault because he didn't have brakes that worked! The trufi was full of people and we were blocking traffic. I got out and called 911, which I later found out is 110 here and it is supposed to transfer over. No one answered anyway. By now everyone is honking their horns and Jack realized the poor guy didn't have insurance and the police would just make things worse. What do you do? So we left. We had to get to Punata!  Tuesday is the big market in Punata. Not only do they have the usual market items of fresh produce, meat, hand made items and a lot of junk from China, but it is the animal auction. People come from miles around with cows, sheep, pigs, chickens. Some are in trucks, most are led by rope, whether they want to come or not.

We parked on a side street and Jack got out to find the missionaries. I watched as a man was yolking two bulls in front of the pickup. I watched as he yolked them and started leading them by the passengers side to the back of the pickup

 

The rest happened so fast I couldn't get really good pictures. Apparently the bulls had a different idea about what was going to happen. They got out of the yolk and started fighting towards the rear of the pickup ramming it and slamming into my side. They were pretty heavy and the pickup received a few good jolts. The man finally got them under control, but as they were leaving, one of the bulls gave a parting shot and rammed the side of my door. I was laughing so hard. This place is like something out of Bible times with animals on the loose everywhere. The pickup had had a bad day already and it wasn't even 8:30!
I can't describe in writing to give Punata justice. It must be experienced. Also, most of the pictures have to be taken on the run, because most of the people don't like their picture taken, so I will just leave you with pictures with captions. We finally met up with the Elders near where a lady was selling parrots.

This picture is not photo-shopped. I took it. Like I said, you have to experience Punata market for yourself!

 

 

This was a piglets in a sack. The Cholita had it tied with a rope to her tienda. It was squealing and snorting and moving all over the sidewalk. I don't even want to know what she had in mind for it Jack said when he was a kid he was with his dad and Bert Webster and an extremely fat lady walked by in tight pants, Bert remarked that it looked like two pigs in a sack. Now he knows what he meant.

This meat market was next to where we were parked. The dog had his head stuck under the table all day. I guess he was waiting for something to be dropped.

Pretty sure this lamb ate up most of the days profits.

These fish were a hot item. They were everywhere and they weren't for bait. From the looks of things, I think they were eaten raw and whole.

This is real hair, most likely Cholita hair. It was fairly inexpensive. I guess if you got it, you could pick and choose which days you wanted to dress Cholita.

Produce at the market.

One of many

 

We had to hurry back to Cochabamba for a meeting at the office. We found out we weren't the only ones with animal stories. There was a lady in Quillacolla, on the way to our Bella Vista branch, whose sheep had been stolen. Apparently her husband had been taking it out on her, so Obispo Davila and the AP's Elders Avila and Tanner decided to buy her some new sheep. Once they made the deal, Obispo said he wasn't going to haul them in his car, so the assistants paid extra to put them in the back seat of their taxi with them. One of them got loose in the car! You never know what you will end up doing here in Bolivia!



Elder Avila - Guatemala



Elder Tanner - Mesa AZ