Day 26: October 2

I woke up early to pack. My siblings were getting ready to leave for school. As they were leaving I gave them some cookies. I tried giving Remedius a hug but she was so shy that she put her head down and scrunched her soldiers in. I said goodbye to Arturo and Ana but couldn’t find Hugo. He darted out of the kitchen trying to avoid me but I ran after him calling his name. I finally caught up to him to find tears running down his cheeks. I tried telling him it was going to be OK but he couldn’t really understand. Instead, I gave him a fist pound and started singing our goal song “olay, olay, olay, olay.” He gave me a smile and I told him to keep scoring. We pounded one more time before he turned around and started heading back up the street. It was so sad but at the same time I was glad to know I made an impact in his life and he had fun. I went back into the kitchen and had some soup and took pictures with my family. Helen then came to my door and it was time to say goodbye. I wanted to tell them how much I enjoyed my stay and how great they were but I knew they wouldn’t understand. Instead, I shook their hands and said thank you. There was so much more I wanted to say but couldn’t.
Helen and I met the rest of the group at the bottom of the hill and then split up according to bus rides. Not everyone could fit so one group was going to walk 2 hours to the bus station and go to the hot springs before and the other group was going to go straight to La Paz. I was in the group that walked and went to the hot springs. It was a very pretty day so I was happy walking and really glad that we were going to the hot springs because I hadn’t showered in a long time. We got to the hot springs after a nice 2 hour walk but they weren’t exactly what I expected…. or IT wasn’t exactly what I expected. We walked down to find a pool filled with hot green water. I didn’t really care at that point though because it was dirty and hadn’t had a warm shower in forever. We stayed at the hot spring for a while and then walked into town for lunch. The bus left at 4:00 and was awful. It was an 8-hour bus ride with people standing, hovering over me in the isles and I was so hot. I also lost my hat and walking stick : ( We FINALLY arrived in La Paz after a very long ride. All of us were really hungry so at like 1:00am we all went to Mega Burger and had a Bolivian fast food HAMburger…it was literally a hamburger because they put ham on it. There were hilarious 90’s music videos playing also it was great. Walked back around the corner and slept really well.