Day 6: Como se dice “quick as bunnies?”

I must have said that phrase a dozen times in the last 48 hours.

Our day started off with a delicious breakfast at the Hacienda.  We had fresh, homemade cheese, as always, fresh fruit, bread and crackers, fresh eggs, and, perhaps the most exciting: fresh homemade strawberry yogurt.  It was so creamy and velvety and delicious.  I honestly don’t know if I can ever eat the crap I have been eating from the grocery store for the last 26 years ever again.  I just may have to buy a dairy farm instead.

After a quick breakfast, we hit the road to Potosí.  We had all of our supplies (for real this time) so we were set.  Remember that our goal for the day was 20 houses.  We met Olivo at his office, then headed out to the meet the girls.  Things were going pretty smoothly this morning.  We still hit the same bumps in the road as yesterday, with people not being home and not having another house ready to go when we finished the one we were sampling.  We wasted quite a bit of time here and there just walking around looking for participants.

A lot of the houses we saw today were incredible.  As I had previously mentioned, the houses here tend to have plastered walls and sealed floors.  But there were two houses today that I was shocked to find in Potosí.  One house looked like old, crooked adobe on the outside.  But once you walked into the property and crossed the patio, you found an amazing two story house with more china cabinets than I could count.  The second had a similar exterior but the house itself was, again, two story, and being remodeled.  This one even had velvet paintings and leather furniture.  These two houses just seemed out of place in Potosí.

We worked today from 8:30am until 6:30pm.  We met our goal of 20 houses.  And passed it – we finished the day with 21 houses.  So we have 14 left to do, hopefully tomorrow.  I have a feeling it’s going to be another long day.

When we returned to the Hacienda, we were informed that they had a surprise for us for dinner.  And oh boy, what a surprise it was!  Silly me forgot my camera in my room, but…  Recall the “museum” I wrote about a few days ago.  Well, we had dinner with Arturo, his wife, Coca, and Renee in the formal dining room on a table from over four hundred years ago.  I felt extremely out of my element, but it was an extraordinary experience.  Coca made a delicious cream of spinach type soup that had fried potatoes in it (I’m definitely going to try to recreate it at home!) and fresh homemade pasta with tomato sauce, and of course, cheese from the dairy farm.  Absolutely amazing.

Well, tomorrow is going to be a long day and I’m exhausted.  We’re supposed to leave at 7:45am.  However, there is a 50/50 chance of a bloqueo tomorrow, so someone may be knocking on the door telling us to move it at 6:00am so we can get into Potosí before they shut down the roads at 7:00am.  This could get interesting…