El Viejo Molino La Paz

... centre of the witch´s market. On the way I passed Iglesia de San Francisco and the hotel I stayed in at almost exactly this time last year (up hill all the way again, just like in Potosi) and when I reached Cactus and rang the bell, there was no answer. Grrr... After studying the Lonely Planet for some time and pondering whether to go for somewhere good or somewhere likely to be open, I set off to Hostal Austria. It was locked up but this time the geezer answered the bell (after two ...

So after returning to dry land from our boat adventure we thought we were done with all this lake stuff. Wrong. To our surprise (not mentioned in our reliable guide books) our bus journey to La Paz got interrupted by a Lake crossing. For this we got ushered off the bus onto one raft whilst our bus followed on another raft. Looking back to our bus at this point was a bit disconcerting. <br><br>On our arrival to La Paz we passed through the outskirts of town. I´m always wary of big cities ...

... had a few decisions to make about my plans for the next few days and eventually decided that I just HAD to go to Bolivia's World Cup qualifier against Brazil. Come on, a no-brainer really. But I had a few days to kill until then...<br><br>I first decided to visit the "nearby" ruins of Tiwanaku, the religious centre of the culture of the same name. I knew nothing about the civilisation, except it got a brief mention in the Planet and another mention in a book I just read about ...

... roads are a joke, taxis and minibuses (and not so mini buses!!) rule the roads, way too frantic a place. To be fair though we were in the main downtown touristy area, and the area we had tea at did seem way calmer.<br>For our last supper as a group we went to a great Thai-Inidan-Chinese-Malaysian restuarant followed by Mongoes nightclub......although much beer was consumed and much dancing occurred their was no hangover in the ...

... hurling what was left of last nights dinner onto the earth in 4 go-rounds....I was not feeling great. We pondered what to do. It was suggested after moto-ing our gear back to the town we started in, Jaime would call our transport guy and let him know where to pick us up and then come back for us one by one with the motorcycle and taxi us back to town to relax and wait. We pondered this some more and despite others wishes I felt we should ...

And as the bus from Copocabana drove through El Alto, the poverty-plagued ghetto of La Paz that inhabits the upper reaches of the city, your mind barely able to adjust to the people and traffic before you are then confronted by a giant hole in the earth, 5 kilometres across and 400 metres down, and at 3660m above sea level. Like the bowels of the earth had attempted to swallow the city and in the process had spat out El Alto at the crest of ...

Daylight broke slowly that morning. I checked the temperature inside the tent: +1C. Brrrrr.... After Piter (with whom we had been reunited the night before) and Ruben had delivered the daily "bed tea" to my tent (yes, the luxury of organized adventure...), I threw on an extra fleece and my down vest, put on my boots, and crept outside to visit the "baño" tent. Wow... what a morning. Snow all around, more heavy snow clouds in the sky, muffled sounds, every step "creaking" on the ...

We woke up the next day and still didn't have any news of Bo, William, the Tom's or Piter. Of course, we had to assume that Bo had, with the porters' help, gotten low enough the day and night before, and that he was fine. In fact, we all assumed he was, by now, in La Paz, possibly in a hospital, or even on his way home to the US. But we couldn't know just yet. The porters hadn't returned during the night, as Kate had thought they might, and now, as we sat around and had ...

WARNING: there is much controversy related in the following account. To my fellow trekkers, if I have mis-represented ANY FACTS, please send me an email, so that I can make amends... --------------------------------------- --------------------- -------------------------------- I woke up choking the next morning. Could barely draw air in. Damn. The dreaded chest cold. I got up early, before the alarm, as I desperately needed to find a "privacy rock" closer to my tent than ...

The first night camping was a bit cold - not that cold, but I wasn't wearing enough layers. That's easy to address. Nonetheless, the sniffles and stuffy nose I had started to feel the day before just got worse during the night, leaving me no doubt that I had... a cold. I hate having a cold normally, at sea level, when the most I have to do is perhaps walk to the corner of the street. On trek, I started dreading what would happen when it became a chest cold, leaving me ...