The Fishers in La Paz, Bolivia

Considering that I have been driving for over half my life now (very scary in itself), it is an odd feeling to know that I haven’t driven a car in months. It’s somewhat relaxing and upsetting to not be able to hop in a car whenever you need to go somewhere. Relaxing in that you don’t have to worry about how to get where you’re going or trying to learn the obscure rules of the road here. Upsetting in that you are at the mercy of the taxi or bus driver or friend with a car to get you where you need to go.

I’m interested to see if my superb driving skills are still intact when we get back to the States (never had a ticket or accident – I know, I know, I probably will now that I’m broadcasting this). If bike riding is any prediction of what will happen when I get behind the wheel, we’re all in big trouble. You see, the whole idea of never forgetting how to ride a bike just didn’t happen for me. Ask some trash cans in Chicago. . . Tom did not believe me when I said I would have to relearn how to ride a bike. We were newly married and bought bikes to ride down the path near Lake Michigan. I stopped riding a bike around age twelve. I never asked for an adult sized bike as a teen, so there was over a decade when I didn’t attempt any bike riding. When Tom nicely filled up my bike tires the first time and handed it over to me, he had no idea what he was getting into. I literally rode up and down the alley for half an hour trying to get control of the thing before actually going out in the street. We headed directly for the park where I didn’t have to worry about cars and that whole thing about signaling which direction you were headed, I never got the hang of that. Tom was astonished to realize that I didn’t know how to break – that’s when some very unfortunately placed metal garbage cans got in my way! I don’t think I actually plowed into them, just lightly grazed them as I was trying to hop off the moving vehicle.

So all that to say, let’s hope driving skills return to me much more quickly than my cycling prowess.