Printer with CISS, Cristo de la Concordia

[August 25-26, 2015] Tuesday and Wednesday

Tuesday
Molly and I went to La Cancha today to buy a printer. We've leaned on the Runquists next door a couple of times to use theirs, but that feels like a bit of an imposition. Since we want to print our talks, and sometimes that takes a few revisions, we figured it would be best to get one for ourselves. In addition, they have a modification that they make here that makes the ink a thousand times cheaper. So, I figured I'd have them do that, too.

The modification adds a Continuous Ink Supply System. Apparently, it's pretty well known and used outside the United States. Here's a couple of pictures showing the modification:

New printer with CISS ink reservoirs

Ink supply tubes routed into the printing chamber

The result required a bit of tweaking, some additional tape to hold things in the right place, etc., but promises to reduce ink costs tremendously. You could buy the kits to refill the cartridges, but this makes adding ink much easier than that - just buy the ink and pour it in. We'll see how well it works, but the ink system only added $15 to the price of the printer. Less than one additional cartridge, and the reservoirs hold about 400 ml total (four inks), as opposed to about 2.5 ml per cartridge. So, we'll see.

Also, Molly whipped up some papas rellenas. Very good (tasty, just to be consistent in my terminology). She's very creative with the resources she has here for cooking.  She thinks I'm losing weight, but if I am, it's because of all the walking we do, not the food. I think we're both as healthy as we've been in a long time.

Wednesday 
Today, we took the tram up to the Cristo de la Concordia statue on the hill to the southeast of the temple. It's a little over 100 feet tall, and stands on a very prominent hill here in the valley. It was built in 1994, and is a little bit taller than the one in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

You can get to the statue via the tram, which costs 10.5 Bolivianos (about $1.60), or climb 2000 steps. We chose the expensive route, which only takes 5 minutes. Another benefit. Here are some pictures. The time of day wasn't really conducive to getting the lighting right. We may have to go a bit later in the day next time.

Cristo de la Concordia statue in Cochabamba, Bolivia

Molly at the base of the Cristo de la Concordia statue.

Tram up to the statue. You can see the stairs to the right of the tram pylons.

Here's the link to the video of the tram ride down from the statue.

Here are some pictures from the park at the tram station at the base of the hill. It was quite the nice little park.

In addition to the statue, we got a great view of Cochabamba. Here are some pictures:

Panorama of Cochabamba from the base of the Cristo de la Concordia statue.
LDS Temple is about 1/3rd from the top of the picture, about 1/6th in from the right edge.

2015 - Cochabamba, Bolivia. Airport is to the left. Compare to the next picture.

1976 - Cochabamba, Bolivia from the air. Airport is in the upper right.

All in all, a very interesting little trip.