Camino Real La Paz

... hoogte van Bolivia de zolen doen splijten. Ook zijn we naar een ander hotel gegaan voor de komende veranderingen, dus nog meer afscheid nemen...

Maar daar is veel voor terug gekomen. Ninka hebben we donderdagnacht van het vliegveld opgehaald, en de nacht erna Jan Peter. We stonden klaar met een grote taxi waar een fietsdoos opgezet kon worden. Na een 25-urige reis hoefden ze ...

... outstanding, my first full english in 7 months, the place was a little lacking in character for our liking. A nice typical Irish bar but not much in the way of Bolivian influence so this convinced us we were staying in the right place. Got a cab back to ours which was near the Witches Market which is where traditional Bolivian woman have stalls telling peoples fortunes and selling weird stuff like LLama Fetuses in a jar which is supposedly good luck.
After a snooze we ...

... are plenty of little resorts along the way.

Then we settled down to the business of getting to Bolivia. After the excellent journey from Piura with ITSSA it was always going to be downhill. The ormeno bus was quite tatty, we had no pillows or blankets, the water in the loos didn't work and there was no toilet roll. We did get fed though, and the food was fine, but, wait for this, the journey took 7 hours longer than anticipated, a total of 31 hours. So while I ...

... properly without a local beer to cheer it up, so we piled into a crazy little colonnial cafe full of old telephones and 1920´s typewriters and ordered up a bottle of the local brew. Una Ceveza Huari por favor señor! Feeling mildly light headed we went back to the hotel to rest for half an hour and stock up on the strepsil fix for the sore throats, before heading out to the local Llama Steak house for dinner, kindly recommended by the man on reception downstairs and 20 metres ...

[Jacque writes]

After a blissfully lazy morning, Leon convinced me to climb the mountain with him, to enjoy the aerial view as opposed to spending more time in the hammock. On a few occasions I regretted the move as I huffed, puffed and cursed my way up (bloody high altitude hikes), but the view ended up being quite remarkable and worth the effort.

We reluctantly left Lake Titicaca and headed back to La Paz. On the way ...

... and has anaesthetic properties. Coca is also an ingredient in Coca-Cola (aaah, so that's where the name comes from) and that interesting class A drug, cocaine. The fight against illegal cocaine factories is pretty big here in Bolivia, although the local law enforcement chaps are pretty much ******* against thunder when you consider the financial resources the drug trade has vs the army of the poorest country in South America.

Talking ...

... two years before in the prisons of La Paz. While you are in there you feel just normal, but once you leave there's something that hits you. It's a strange feeling, but overall you feel you are doing something which makes sense over something which has no sense.

As we were not too far, after exiting Chonchocoro we went to Qalauma, which is the prison for youth, under construction. Two years ago I had come here ...

The flight to La Paz was delayed on Tuesday due to strong tail winds but we eventually got on. It was only a 45 min flight but that was enough as turbalence was really bad (especially during take off) The view coming into La Paz was amazing-it was the best thing really about La Paz seeing the capital city in the mountains. We got off and got taxi to our hostel which was again number 1 in trip advisor but this time it did not let us down. It ...

... Coca museum, describing all aspects, from the chemistry to the history - both use and mis-use of the plant, from the religious context to its healing properties through to it abolishment in certain countries. In typical irony, the biggest user of cocaine is the US even though they wage the greatest war against it.

We also wandered the handcrafts and the (in)famous witches market, from where you can purchase dried llama foetuses! You´re not sure ...