Weekend trips

During our stay in Cochabamba we ocasionally did weekend trips. We went to the jungle, we got taken out by our spansish housemates and all of thieir friends and we were taken to a national park. The jungle was unreal! So green and so hot! We saw every kind of insect and amazing birds. We explored natural river ponds that we could swim in. Our night out with locals we ended up outside the police station because friends got into a fight. Not something you expect or should do when in Bolivia. The weekend trip that stuck with me for it's political aspect was our trip to the national park which was called Torro Torro. It was a park known for it's caves and dinosaur prints. Bolivia has this cool thing where they love their dinosaur prints. Who knows if they are real or not, they look real and everyone here sure believes it. But how did they not get washed away? They say the dino's were just passing through to go somewhere else, that's why there are no bones. We explored caves while we were there also. This was very awesome but very scary due to the small places we had to crawl or slither through. We spent 2 1/2 hours down in the cave but it's possible to spend days down there. It goes for about 7 km.
The Sunday we were there was the judicial elections. Something we don't have in Canada but it's taken very seriously in Bolivia, like any election here. We were unable to head back to Cochabamba on this day because no one is allowed to drive a car or travel. Our driver thought that because we were tourists and because we were in a smaller place that maybe they wouldn't be as strict. But he was wrong and was told if he did that again he would end up in jail. It is mandatory to vote in Bolivia, if a citizen doesn't vote then their bank account will be blocked off and will have no access to their money, I never found out for how long for though.
If you did not agree with the political party or did not want to vote, and you decided to spoil your ballot then the vote would go to the party in power. This is not a well known fact so people still spoil ballots thinking they are protesting but really it's still going to the same party. Whole communities are paid to vote for a certain party to secure the parties position. The corruption in Bolivia is huge. Rich against poor, government against citizens and police along with then.
In Cochabamba the north side of town is where most of the richer people live and there are a lot of pools in this section. When people are done using their water they can sell the water to trucks and this water is then sold to the south end of town to people for drinking. It is very cheap water and it's the only option because it's not very common to have running water.