Sitting in an airport discussing why people watch poker on television Andrea, Keara, and I (Pascale) are about an hour away from taking off from the Miami International airport where we will land early in the morning tomorrow in La Paz, Bolivia. It is all so unreal. The restless days of thinking about a trip and project of a lifetime and now we are here, about to embark on the journey. As I look around at the faces around me, I search for what they are feeling and why they too are boarding this plane.
The young couple sitting across the way watching a video on youtube or the father and son reading trucking magazines looking aimlessly into the pages of large wheels and complex mechanics, are they going home? Or is Bolivia just a country they are passing through to make is somewhere farther?

I have filled my Netflix queue with documentaries of travel and travel shows to get me excited about this strange, but wonderful adventure, but if there is one thing I have learned from all my travel it is that you can never truly prepare because the best experiences are those that take you out of yourself, out of a calendar with scheduled times and expectations.

As we sit here in the airport calling our families, saying our last goodbyes before being out of reach for a little while there is a vibration of adventure that runs up our spines (it also may be from the amount of sun and humidity we’ve gotten in Miami). We don’t know what to expect, but that is what excites us.

With our large backpacks and suitcases we will carry our things to a far off land and as we put our things in to that new land, we will also put ourselves there.

As our objects start to become familiar in a new environment so will we. I guess that the best way to end this second pre-departure post is to say Sustainable Bolivia, CECAM, and Bolivia…here we come! We can’t wait to get used to you!

All our love,

The BU/BC Nourish International Bolivia team (Pascale, Andrea, Keara, Carrie)

P.S.- I wasn’t able to do this post at the time I was writing it because we were called to board, but Andrea, Keara, Carrie and I are now safe in La Paz drinking un café con leche waiting for our flight to Cochabamba looking out to the window at the vast snow-capped mountains surrounding us. Exhausted, but ecstatic. More to come!