This coming week I leave for the city of Cochabamba which is in the central plateau area of Bolivia. It has a marvellous climate of warm (humidity free) days and cool evenings for sleeping. From this place one can drive down the mountainside and enter the rain forest in 4 hours or drive across the high plateau to the snowy peaks of La Paz in 6 hours.

Happily I will be missing the swagger of the G20 conference in Toronto during these weeks…enjoying instead the simplicity of a forgotten country. I will be reminded (as I am year after year) that there is a world not dominated by English, international financial systems, and North American fast food outlets (actually there is one Burger King in Cochabamba, but that hardly counts!).

Gracias a Bolivia para tu simplicidad y tu descanso a mi alma. Gracias! (Thank you Bolivia for your simplicity and rest for my soul. Thank you!)