Cochabamba

We went to Cochabamba (the city of the eternal spring, although I think we've been to multiple places now which claim that moniker) to have a nice relaxing time and do some pseudo-work before we go home. It didn't exactly go to plan, and instead we had a week of Chris being in excruciating pain from dental chaos and Elli trying her best to find a dentist who would remove the problem tooth and learning some very weird new Spanish vocabulary. It was... a bit of a mission, and we met a whole family of dentists during our time, none of whom were willing to get involved. Alas, painkillers it was, and surgery delayed to Rio. This feels like perfect symmetry with our last week across Asia, just before we went home, when Elli had her own wisdom tooth out in Istanbul. Poetic.

Anyway all of this was made slightly less awful by the fact that we paid £53 a night for without a doubt the nicest place we've stayed the whole trip, perhaps the nicest place we will ever stay. Our penthouse flat had a 360* view of Cochabamba (complete with nightly carnival rehearsals from the big band and a view of Cochabamba's version of Christ the Redeemer). It had three bedrooms, four beds, three baths, six toilets, eight sofas, three dining tables, a steam room and a ping pong table. And a piano. We swanned around in total luxury and complained about the fact that it took several minutes and a long walk to find anything once you put it down somewhere.

Beyond that, well, Cochabamba is supposed to be famous for its food, and maybe it was somewhat better than other food we've eaten in Bolivia, but that's not saying much. All the local dishes seem to consist of three people's worth of potatoes, a slab of beef and a fried egg, and I'm not against that (maybe without the beef) but we are really stretching the definition of fine dining here.

Nonetheless, come for the weather, stay for the deep pile carpets and the jacuzzi bath.Read more