Carla Doria – Fiction Author

This may be one of the most random posts I’ve ever written. It’s just an ensemble of news/updates/internal realizations.

First, it’s quite surreal these days here in my country. Those days when you suddenly turn on CNN and the reporter is talking about the Pope visiting Ecuador, Bolivia and Paraguay. You see, we’re never on the news, unless something terrible happened, and this time, we’re on them because of something good, for a chance.

Of course, everybody is excited, but I’ll just follow up all the events on TV. I happen not to live on one of the cities where the Pope will be arriving. And even though, many people are travelling to those cities (La Paz, Santa Cruz), at this point it’s very hard to organize a trip because everything is sold out (plane tickets, hotels, etc.)

Although, I’m a bit worried by the Pope’s arrival in El Alto (4000 meters above sea level… oh I may need to convert this for some readers 🙂  13123.36 feet above sea level (according to Google)) He’s scheduled to arrive this Wednesday and then go down to La Paz 12,087 altitude and then in less than 4 hours go back to El Alto. Did they think this well? I mean, altitude sickness is real! I often go to La Paz and it’s not always that easy, specially if you’re not used to it. For what I’m really crossing my fingers, is that it won’t be the same as in Ecuador (Quito) where the Pope’s security were running along the Pope’s vehicle today. I mean, if they were to try that in El Alto, they will faint in a matter of seconds. Most people usually need a whole night in El Alto and in La Paz in order to get used to altitude. Anyway… I hope we’re not on the news because the Vatican staff and the Pope’s delegation got sick when they arrived to Bolivia.

And on other news/realizations, I just realized I must have been an eskimo in my previous life. You see, in the southern hemisphere, we’re in the middle of the winter right now. But our winters are not that severe as the ones in Europe, for example. But I love cold weather. I absolutely adore it. And I’m kind of a vampire for sunny/warm days. Also my dream Holidays are not in a caribbean beach resort but in a lovely wooden cottage in Iceland or Finland 🙂 Yeah, I know I’m crazy, but I just love snowy mountains, cold breeze on your cheeks, and wearing my mittens 🙂 This past Saturday, we had a sudden drop of temperatures in the whole country. It rained and it snowed in the mountains and in some cities. Unfortunately, in my city it doesn’t get to snow, but the mountains around the city get white snowy and beautiful. I was thrilled and excited but my friends, work colleagues, family, etc., they were all suffering; the poor ones.  It got colder than usual, Europe cold, (or at least it made me remember my days of living in Scotland) Everybody was feeling miserable and I was all smiley. I know, I must be crazy. And if there’s such thing as as previous life, then definitely I was an eskimo or a wild person from the mountains in Alaska.

Anyway, I thought this was a good chance to show a picture of my city, Cochabamba, these days.