Count-down begun

Hello friends!
You have been invited to read about my travels in and around Bolivia this summer as I embark upon my internship with CEPAD in Santa Cruz, Bolivia.

http://www.cepad.org

Santa Cruz is on the relatively rich eastern side of Bolivia and it has been in the news recently for its calm democratic processes:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/05/world/americas/05bolivia.html

It will definitely be an exciting summer!
I am going to be participating in a ten week internship in the town of Buena Vista, approximately 1 hour outside of the city of Santa Cruz de la Sierra, working with local officials to come up with a sustainable business plan for the municipality. Given that the most sustained employment I ever had was an 8 month job working in the weight room of the gym at UC Berkeley, I am not sure what advice I am going to be able to give local officials but I am willing to give it a college try (what would Tedford do?)

I am excited to go to Latin America and I hope that it'll be less hot and more awesome than I think.

My ambitions for the trip are to:
1) not get malaria
2) improve my Spanish
3) write a good blog
4) not get malaria
5) travel
6) make connections for future work opportunities
7) travel with all necessary goods in one bag. Having a carry-on is not only a time saver, but also a money saver as well.

The one bag goal is not really going to be feasible on the way to Bolivia since I was advised to bring bug spray, sunscreen, shampoo and some other liquids with me. I also read that there are no granola bars in Bolivia, so I plan to have one-check in backpack with liquids, my clothes and granola bars in it and then a smaller carry-on with my computer, camera and a book or two. That way, once the liquids are used up and the granola bars eaten, I will get down to one carry-on bag.

So far my preparations have consisted of going to the medical center to get shots (tetanus, rabies, yellow fever) and find out all the incurable diseases that they really cannot help me with (note to self: stay away from kissing bugs Changos Disease=no fun). I bought some traveler's insurance in case I need to be medically evacuated or get dismembered, and I am planning on buying a new camera that does not require batteries (that way if I lose a limb I can document it without worrying about whether my batteries ran out).

That is about all the news for now, hopefully the upcoming posts will be a lot more interesting. Until then, I will try to survive the last three weeks of finance and QM and if anyone has any suggestions or advice before I go on my travels, I would love to hear them.

Hasta entonces,

athalia

P.S. I am also going to be travelling after my internship ends on August 29th. I will hopefully travel around Bolivia and into Peru from August 30th - September 19th. If anyone has some spare time and wants to join in the fun, the more the merrier!