La Paz, the highest capital in the world, is our first stop in Bolivia. The airport is 4058m above sea level and the sight of the city 500m below, lying at the bottom of a steep canyon and ringed by snow-capped mountains is breath-taking. It's good to be back on the road and exploring the world again, La Paz is brightly coloured and lively and surprisingly, given that I'm not a fan of big cities, I like it.
We're definitely back in South America proper now. The streets are clogged with collectivos (minibuses on set routes around the city) with someone hanging out of them shouting completely unidentifiable place names. The streets are lined with stalls selling every imaginable item, although a lot of them seem to be stocked from those bins you see in airports which are full of all the confiscated sharp items! Most of the women wear traditional outfits of full, brightly coloured skirts and bowler hats. What is it with bowler hats? In a country where the weather flits from burning hot sunshine to freezing cold, what the hell use is a bowler hat?! It doesn't offer protection from sun or cold. It's also a complete mystery to me how they stay perched on the top of their heads. Why don't they fall off?! What are the huge bundles they all constantly carry around on their backs in stripy cloths all about too, and do they really need to be carried up steep hills by old ladies?!
We've been stopped a few times on the street by dodgy-looking characters. Only once, however, have they been trying to sell us drugs. Every other time they've flashed us a fossil they're trying to sell. I'm not sure why fossil selling needs to be done in such a cloak and dagger fashion, or why they think we might want to buy them!
Bolivia is by far the least efficient country I have ever been to! It's a huge mission to get even the smallest thing done. When you order something in a restaurant it takes a ridiculously long time to come, comes all in the wrong order and is horrible anyway! Everyone tells you something different, no one ever has any change, the price of things fluctuates from one moment to the next and the ubiquitous shoe-shiners, who lurk around in black balaclavas looking distinctly sinister, insist that "it is possible" to shine flip flops!
Even getting a new alarm clock has been quite an adventure. Mine was stolen out of my rucksack on the flight here (it could have been worse) and we searched the city to find a replacement. The total lack of clocks for sale may go some way to explaining why everything here is always late! Eventually we found one and after some haggling, of which Ben was very proud and resulted in us getting a whole 20 pence off, we bought it. It lasted until ten o'clock! We now have another one that (fingers crossed) actually seems to work, but this one shouts, and I mean shouts, the time and temperature in Spanish when we least expect it! It also plays us little tunes and makes cuck coo noises from time to time too :0)
"You haven't been to Bolivia unless you've been tear-gassed", so we're told! So when a big political rally passed in the street setting off fire crackers and surrounded by lots of police armed with rubber-bullet firing guns and tear-gas canisters, we went the other way!
Whilst here we've explored the Witches Market, from where you can buy all kinds of herbs and potions, not to mention a llama foetus, should you ever have cause to require one (?!). We've been to the coca museum too and learned all about the cultivation and uses of coca throughout history. One of my favourite parts was where it described the way that the women working in the fields harvesting the coca wear their best brightly coloured clothes to attract the attention of the watching (notice not working!) men, who respond to the ladies flirtation by "playfully throwing rocks at them". It'd work for me I'm sure! We also explored the plush part of town, the Bolivian version of Beverly Hills, one of the best-known inhabitants of being the owner of the local beer company. We also visited the near-by Moon Valley, which Ben helpfully informs me is named such because it looks like the moon (!) and a cactus garden, which was disappointingly lacking in cactuses (I know it's cacti, but it sounds stupid!)
Ben:
There are more photos here
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