running, singing and swimming

We left Yacapani the day after we had recovered from our hangovers and headed on to Buenavista with the hope of organising a tour to the nearby national park, Amboro. Buenavista is a sleepy little town described as 'more mild west than wild west' in the guide book (it is however in the east of Bolivia?) anyhow it had a pretty plaza and an intresting market to wander about. We managed to organise a tour for the following day, cost not including food so we spent a good deal of time (and budget) on vegetables in the market and then chilled in hammocks for the rest of the afternoon.
We'd been told that there was a lovely swimming pool belonging to a hotel about 2km out of town and feeling energetic in the late evening, decided to run there (a great idea in principle). However, in real life the directions we had were terrible, so much to the amusement of the locals we ran about 4km in a huge square we found ourselves no nearer the pool, very sweaty and just slightly disheartened but not to be beaten we set off again. The evening sun rapidly becoming dusk as we continued to run on, after asking twice more for directions we were finally on the right road but the sun had set and the dusty road was dark as it wound its way through a small wood, we carried on running.
I was beginning to think that in fact the pool may be closed but decided it best not to turn around at this stage (not least, as we had 4 children giggling and running behind us- i have some pride). The road curved on and we picked up a man on a bicyle who assured us he knew where we were going and suprisingly he actually did, we had finally arrived at the pool.
The only problem now was the fact that in seemed to be well and truely closed with the gate bolted. After a few minutes of shouting over the gate Ursula climbed over to have a better look, there seemed to be noone around and the pool in the moonlight looked very inviting. I too climbed over the fence and very soon we had both jumped in, watched by a very lazy guard dog laying at the edge.
Running back (well mostly walking really) we noticed what seemed to be a music concert in a nearby hall and went over to investigate. This 'concert' actually turned out to be an evangelical church service which we were invited to join (remember we are both soaking wet, sweaty and have our bikinis tyed to our running clothes), we accepted and joined the congregation and were soon clapping and miming enthusiastically if not slightly surreal. At one point a six year old was lead singer on stage then the vicar got up with an electric guitar and was accompanied by a moody teenager on drums after which a half naked tramp had to be removed after causing a disturbence.
We returned home feeling both physically and mentally cleansed.