Brad Eat World: A day in the life

10 Dec 2011, Cochabamba Bolivia, Foster the People – Torches

I had been living in the altitudes of Cochabamba for a month and a half now, and the city had stolen my heart. It has a superb climate, primavera eterna (eternal spring), the people are wonderfully friendly and the city has great food. There also exists a super cool place which is my favourite thing about Cochabamba. It is the market known as “La Cancha”. It’s the biggest shopping center I have ever seen, and proudly the largest market in South America.

I decided to take to the streets for a day of photos shooting, and we start above with this photo from my apartment, with the sun about to rise behind the largest statue of christ in the world. Christo de la Concordia.

I woke up a little hungover after a quality game of poker. Newcomer to the sport, Lilie took the pot with her lady luck.	And here is a pretty boring photo of my apartment building. I was living on the 7th floor, and had a lovely view across the city
The local transport around town are sup’d up buses like this one, known as a trufi’s.	After 20 minutes of bumpy ride I finally arrived at the market
The local farmers come in most days to sell their goods, but the biggest days, know as the “Feria” are on Wednesdays and Saturdays	The Amazonian jungle is 3 hours away, this is where the tastiest fruit in the world comes from. Yum, fresh bananas
An orange juice squeezer. The juice this lady extracts is the best in the world. Not budging on that. F.A.C.T. These carts are all around the city, average cost for a fresh juice, 40cents us.	Papayas by the barrowful
As well as garlic	Pots, pans spoons, everything you need.
This butchery has a calfs head and the skin of a leopard on the wall for advertising	And here, open to the world is “street meat”

All of these photos are from the streets even before actually entering “La Cancha”. The market is the a most wonderful place to visit. Every time I adventure in, I discover a new section of interesting things, this could be anything from the latest t.v.s to the coca section, the witches market, potato area, hat area, anything and everything.

And the adventure continues inside …..

The entrance is reminiscent of the entry into Ali Baba’s cave	Corridors and isles of small shops, here is the hat section
Real horse hair is the latest fashion for hair extensions	Lots of little stores that cater for you everyday needs
Clothes for you indigenous baby	Pasta by the sackful
Oranges by the pyramid	Watermelons by the truckload
Potatoes, potatoes, potatoes	Dead llama foetuses for use in rituals
Coca leaves to be eaten or turned into cocaine	bread, bread bread
Hardware supplies	Live animals

And more and more and more and more. I cannot say how big this place is, I amble for hours happily looking at the cool items for sale and interesting people too. The only problem arises is when you actually need to buy something, you need to know where to look for it.

Bolivianos, BBQ as a way of life

And after my wonderful trip to La Cancha, there were plans of a super sweet bbq at Dianas house with the local narco gang, known as “The Cochabambinos”.

BBQing is a national sport in Bolivia, here we are all prepared for an afternoon of fun	And we arrive at Dianas place, I think her family might be quite well off.
Squaaky the parrot comes out to play	and takes a liking to Negrita
BBQ king Dennis and Canadian alcoholic Ben start cocktailing	And after a few of those, well abajo abajo abajo
party games galore, all you need is a broom and some space	Illing and chillin, time for bed…
After the BBQ, most of the Cochabambinos went home, but for me it was off to Hooligans, where Santos found true love	and as with many a fun night, it is all over too fast. The sun comes up and from out of nowhere comes the cutest puppy in the world.