“Traveling, it leaves you speechless then turns you into a storyteller.”

Every since school got out a few weeks ago, I have been crazy busy between starting a new job, continuing my current job and planning for my upcoming trip (in T-minus 2 days) to Bolivia with a 24 layover in Bogota. I will be heading to Bolivia for three weeks for a research project through school about drug policy, focusing on studying the coca leaf, coffee and the many misconceptions people have. I was one of those people, until I took a class a few years ago and it changed my life forever. The world has a long history of drugs and it is complicated beyond belief, yet in every way it is intertwined and connected to the big and little things. Everywhere I look it is in the news and related to foreign, domestic and current events.

What I am most excited for is to just be in Bolivia and experience everything that this country has to offer. I have heard wonderful things about the people and have been studying the culture for a bit and am so excited to just experience it all. I wouldn’t say that I am nervous or scared of anything; however I have a feeling that I am going to fall in love with Bolivia and that it will be part of my life for some time to come. It is going to be a very busy three weeks doing ethnographic research and from what I have heard is going to be exhausting! We will be in La Paz, Coroico in the Yungas and a few other places that are smaller and more remote regions.

Here are a few things that I have been up to lately in between work and preparing for this trip!

A wonderful sunrise hike up my favorite path.

A few BBQ’s with friends and rooftop dinners…made this custard fruit tart with orange liquer and it was demolished! (recipe to come)

Lots of reading and researching for Bolivia!

And now, back to packing….

See you in Bolivia!

-Kaila