The big city

Sat 3rd- Thurs 9th Dec

We hopped on the bumpiest four hour bus ride ever to get to La Paz which wasn’t the most comfortable, they should make a Disney themed ride: Buses of Bolivia; then make franchise movies staring us both and Johnny Depp as the crazed, daring bus driver. We did however have to hop off the bus halfway through to get a boat over a river crossing, while the bus went on a wooden barge powered by an outboard motor! We really expected to not see the bus again or our luggage!

The bumps on the road were soon forgot as La Paz came into view. We were cruising about taking in the piles of rubbish and ramshackle trade buildings when this mammoth city that hugged the valley walls literally took our breath way (to quote lonely planet) as its 3660 meters above sea level. There was no land, space, nook, outcrop, spared. The city consumed the landscape. La Paz truly is a sight to behold. It took us off guard as it was the biggest city that we had seen for a while.
As we made out decent into the city, the streets got smaller and smaller, and the near misses with cars, other buses and people became more frequent- call Jerry Brockheimer now. I don’t know if we’ll ever get used to the traffic over here by-the-way! Again, the drivers here are Loco! We were let off and found our way to the nearest hostel. The reception was on the second floor overlooking a café downstairs and as we were checking in we looked over the balcony and just happened to see Liz and Louise having a coffee!! Getting good at the stalking thing! We chilled out for a bit and met the girls out for dinner later.

Sunday morning we went for a walk around our area in search of a cheaper hostel. The place we were staying in was pretty cheap already, but when your in Bolivia you know you can get cheaper. We walked around for ages in search of one particular hostel we had heard of but couldn’t find, and ended up walking past government house at the same time as a big band was making its way down the street. We stopped and watched for a while and one of the uniformed men in the procession was carrying the Bolivian flag, folded up in a glass box. It started raining and these poor guys were stopped in the street for some unknown reason, so I took some photos and we left it at that. We found the hostel in the end, but ended up choosing one that was around the corner from where we were staying.

That afternoon we were supposed to go watch an exhibition soccer game with Liz and Louise but decided on going to a once-in-a-lifetime event. It was called Cholitas Wrestling. Cholita is the name of the traditional skirt that the local women wear that symbolises libre-freedom. That noted, it wasn’t a fashion event it was much more in vogue for a touristy arvo- a bunch of surly, mouthy, bunch of local ladies wrestling in a shabby ring…or so we thought. We went with a bunch of other tourists in a bus to a concrete stadium that looked like a bomb shelter on the out’skirts’ of La Paz, where we got free popcorn and a ringside seat. There were heaps if gringos there, along with a whole bunch of locals, with a big wrestling ring in the middle. A man got up and started to talk, everything was in Spanish so we couldn’t understand any of it, but next thing he was calling up the contestants and they were men!! With masks and caps!! It was just like WWF wrestling on telly, except these men weren’t as fit or as good at acting mean or hurt- now that’s saying something! It was so funny, we laughed so hard, and of course each match was rigged and the ’bad’ wrestler had the help of the referee. When a girl (Cholita) finally came out to fight, she was up against this pooncey guy, and even though you know the fights are staged we still couldn’t help wincing a few times at how bad she was getting beaten up.

Between each fight they played ’Eye of the Tiger’ over the PA and they even had the token speech about something or other by a wrestler and group fights, with some of the wrestlers ending up in some of the tourist’s laps!! We were a bit over it by the time it didn’t end, it went on a bit long. The majority of the fighters were men, with a couple of guys verses gals fights. We got right into the cheering and booing and yelling with everyone else. Afterwards we went to a restaurant for dinner and bumped into Liz and Louise again!! No need to correspond with these two, we always find them! We compared stories of wrestling and football and they went on their way.

Monday was pretty quiet. We moved hostels and I went to café to work on the blog (I really need to catch up!) While Pete played guitar in the hotel room. He joined me in the afternoon and we ended up spending a bit of time at the café talking to other travellers which was cool. We ended up at place for dinner that served Thai, Indian and Chinese food that had been recommended by Liz and Louise. We shared the best dim sums and an alpacha Indian dinner with beer and were served by the greatest waiter who charmed our pants off and made us laugh. It was a great night and great food.

Tuesday saw us going for another walk around and making our way to the museum of music. Now I’m not sure if I made you aware of the money issues we had in Peru, but we were having them here also. ATMs give you 100 boliviano notes ($14 dollars), and most things on the street cost between 4 to 20 boliviano so you’re guaranteed that the vendor doesn’t have change for a large note. It’s really quite stupid. This happened at the music museum. For example it was 5 boliviano each for entry, and we only had 100 bs. So we walked around for ages trying to find a cash machine just to get out a smaller note. We finally made it back to the museum and the whole thing would’ve lasted us 45 minutes at the most. It was filled with heaps of instruments however, mostly of South American origin, and a lot using animal shells and skins. There was even instruments you could play much to our amusement.

After our renditions of Twinkle Little Star on the ‘water bottles’ and Radiohead/Violent Femmes on the xylophone, we walked up a cute little alleyway and looked in all these little boutique stores which had some gorgeous handicrafts. On trying to purchase something we had the same money woes! We ended up having to go and have lunch at the nearest place we could find four blocks away so we could get some change to go back with. It can be such a mission at times.
That night Pete wanted to great dim sums again, so we went back to the same restaurant and had exactly the same food and the same entertaining waiter!

Wednesday we had organised a day tour around to some of the sights around La Paz. We were picked up by the most crammed mini bus ever. They had put way too many seats in it and poor Pete had no where to put his legs, which you know longer and more precious than Jamie-Lee Curtis‘!! We spent most of the tour in the damn thing to, which was loads of fun…right.

Check out the ice!!

Our first stop was to a mountain called Chacaltaya in the Royal mountain range just outside of La Paz. Its peak being 5430 metres above sea level. The bus took us to 5200 metres, we had to walk the rest. That was really hard going. The altitude made it feel as though our hearts were going to jump out our mouths. We got puffed heaps quicker and our heads started to hurt, but we made it, right to the lofty top (only five of us did it) and it was bitterly cold. The wind whipped at us and it even started to lightly snow. The view was amazing we really felt out in the middle of nowhere.

5430 meters above sea level!!

Once back in the van, we made the bumpy ride back down the hill on these one lane volcanic rock roads, past some little villages and through to the other side of La Paz. There we went to Valle de la Luna, the The Valley of the Moon. It let us tell you all it was out-of- this- world! The whole rock valley was limestone, and due to years of wind and rain erosion, parts of the limestone structure, and it’s ultimate future, had been washed away, leaving huge canyons and holes. There was a walking track to follow which took us through and over and around the canyons. It really didn’t look real…really. Our guide explained to us that the rich people lived out in this part of the city- the weather was nicer than in the city of La Paz. There was even a golf course! The highest in the world.
After a big day of mainly driving around in a hot little van, we ate pizza biggest pizza in La Paz and called it a day.

Valley of the moon

Thursday we went and organised a red-eye bus for that night to get us to Potosi-the mining town. It wasn’t leaving till eight pm, so we had quite a few hours to kill and no room to go back to. So we decided to go for another walk around to try to find the cinema. We got a little lost, but not such a bad thing when you have hours and want to see a city. When we did find the cinema, it only showed one movie and it wasn’t even one we knew, and not even in English! So we slowly walked back up the main strip. La Paz has a busy centre, with high rises and business and people all around, a real actual city!

We walked past a contemporary art museum, so we decided to go look. I remembered reading that this building is another of Mr Effiles creations, he has the tower in Paris, a corner building in the main plaza at Iquitos and a house in La Paz. It was a beautiful house, and the paintings and sculptures were great too, Pete thought they were shit. I hadn’t been feeling brilliant all day (I think the altitude from the day before was getting to me) so it nice to be in the quiet and just sit for a while.

Coca absenth

We made our way back slowly to the hostel that was holding our bags, and came across the Coca museum! The coca leaf is a huge part of everyday life and culture for Bolivians, and the Peruvian to be fair. It was only when the westerners got hold of it that its stigma was born. Because most of Bolivia is at such high altitude and due to their main industry and economic support being the mining industry, they use the coca leaves to chew on to help relieve: fatigue, the effects of the altitude sickness, and to subdue hunger, so they are able to work for longer down the mines without any real sustenance. The qualities of the leaf aside, the Spanish and the Catholic church started calling it the ‘devil’s leaf’, when they invaded South America and subsequently banned the chewing of it. That is until they discovered its benefits and the effects it had on their now slave population’s productivity in the silver mines. Being the benevolent souls they were they made an exception- let the people chew coca- happiness is a worn gum, and lifted the ban. It was interesting to read about the history of the coca leaf and afterwards we went to the café that was fixed to the museum where I had “She don’t lie, she don’t lie- coca tea” (which we drank lot of in Cusco and the Inca trail with the altitude) and tried coca chocolate cake. Pete the stupid gringo had coca mixed with absinth, which turned out to be, you guessed it, a disgusting, vile, putrid, uber-strong shot. Apart from tasting a tad of Pete’s drink I I actually felt better afterwards.
We then called in at a restaurant to have some tea and passed the time playing cards which has been our saviour of late. It was then off to the bus station to get our eleven hour bus to Potosi happy times!!

La Paz, Bolivia