Found a place to live!

After my last post, I promptly fell very ill from altitude sickness. Apparently only waiting 3 days before going on a 3 mile run at 12,000 feet isn't enough time. I was pretty sick the next two days, nauseous/headache/couldn't really eat/sleep, but have since then recovered and am doing well!

We finally found a place to live too! After searching all weekend and almost deciding to stay long-term in a hostel, we were put in contact with a British economist who does freelance development work (and knows people from IPA) who has a few extra rooms. It has hot water, internet, a kitchen we can use, and two extra bedrooms. The only problem is that one of the bedrooms is suuuuper tiny, but we'll make do. It's nice to not be vagabonds and to have somewhere to go, we'll probably move in either tomorrow or the following day.

Work was put on hold yesterday while we searched for apartments, but we've still been making some progress. We've found that "prestamos de dinero" are actually advertised in the local newspapers. People offer to give money with TV's, computers, kitchen appliances, ect used as collateral. I also saw cars being accepted today, which makes me wonder how many cars a lender can rack up while extending these loans. Another interesting thing we've come across is called 'anticresis'. People actually give up their houses or apartments or even just rooms of houses in exchange for money. If they default on their loan, the creditor can seize the entire house/apartment/room (though I'm not sure how the room logistically works out...). Some are sad to read because they are giving up their house in order to pay for medical expenses. This is, again, all advertised in the local paper.

We're not sure on the legality of these things, what is the interest charged on these loans, or how the collateral actually works, but we hope to be able to talk to some of these people in the coming days. We're not sure if they are going to talk to us, but we're hoping to woo them over with our bad spanish before they hang up on us. We don't really have a second plan of attack yet, so hopefully this works out.