Convento San Teressa

With Monday off we spent an extra day in cochabamba. We decided to go on a tour of the convento san teressa, a newly turned museum of what was one of cochabambas oldest convents, with the first nuns coming in in 1760! It was a closed convent until the 70's, and still has 10 nuns who now live in a new annex - although they only moved out of this crumbling but beautiful building in 2004!!

Here is a picture of the medicine cabinet, still stocked with all f the original chemicals and powders, where the nuns could make up almost any medicine to treat their ailments. Doctors were only allowed in in extreme circumstances, and so the nuns all had to treat themselves. Even today 6 of the remaining nuns are over 80, and have lived in the convent since their teens, and are so used to a closed off existence they still live that way, speaking for only 2 hours a day and having no visual contact with the outside world. Crazy!

We explored the market and sampled the traditional Cochabambino lunches, before indulging ourselves by going to the spa owned by the hostal owner, conveniently getting us in for free!