A day under the sign of a cow

Unfortunately Patrick left the Spanish school yesterday early afternoon and I tryed to study vocabulary most of the day.

Every now and then a vegetable car is driving through the village, making lot's of noise.

But all in all the first day with hot sunshine all day and a wonderful sunset in the evening.

Today, my last day at Atahualpa, Rocio, her brother Wilson and me were driving to her cows very early in the morning. And for the first time in my life I had the chance to milk a cow!!!
But first we had to climb up a hill and again I had to take some breaks. And in between I could not believe I am walking through a bamboo forest!!! Amazing!!! Never saw such a wonderful bamboo forest before!

When arriving at the cow pasture we had a wonderful view over the area.

All in all there were maybe 7 cows and 3 little calves. Muy bien!

Milking the cows was very difficult and I got the milk everywhere but not into the bucket. Slow but finally I made it!

One cow seemed to get a baby very soon, so we got very excited.

We hurried up, back to the wonderful bamboo forest and to the meeting point, where people can sell their milk.

After that we went back to the cow pasture, this time from another direction.

Again walking through a bamboo forest and back to the cows...

But the cow still did not got her baby. We were waiting one or two hours, but nothing happened. We all got worried, cause in general it takes just one hour for a cow to get her baby. That's why we left to call a vet, but the vet was not in town. So Rocio called many friends to get medicine and after a very late breakfast we went back to the cow.

Unfortunately I had to realize that many nice days are followed by a bad one: When we arrived we saw mother-cow standing next to her stillborn calf :-( She did not stopp licking her baby to revive it, but of course nothing happened. It was really really sad to see this little, dead thing... and I avoid to think about "calf carrion = Andean Condor lunch".