Appreciating Cocha

After three days in La Paz, I am remembering why I like Cochabamba so much. To most people it probably seems like a dry, boring town, but to me it is peace and tranquility. Yes the traffic is bad, and I get sick way too often; but the light has a quality that fills up spaces, making them glow from the inside. The air is too polluted, but it is always warm and gentle, and holds you without letting you drop. Not like the air in La Paz - at 12,000 feet the air is so thin and insubstantial, it barely offers enough to breathe, and does nothing to buffer you from the harsher elements. And it is cold! In Cochabamba, even in winter, the cold does not penetrate your bones as it does in La Paz. Here it is mostly warm, the people are mostly warm, the sidewalks are mostly warm, the sunsets and sunrises. There is room here to breathe.