La Paz
Trip Start
Mar 28, 2008
1
19
98
Trip End
Mar 27, 2009
La Paz,
La Paz,
Bolivia
Monday, April 28, 2008
Our first impression of La Paz was another huge, sprawling city where you donīt feel safe. We felt worse after reading some information in reception about fake police officers taking your money. However, when we went out in a group the City is okay.
La Paz is the highest capital in the world. Everywhere you go, you see mini vans acting as buses with the driverīs assistant leaning out shouting destinations. The traffic congestion is immense, even at 8.30pm you sit in a traffic jam! 10 times worse than London.
Crossing roads is very interesting, they donīt follow basic traffic rules and on the whole unless there are police there they ignore traffic lights and pedestrian crossings
A carving at Tiahuanaco
. The government is trying to stop this by having people dressed up as Zebras (yes Zebras!)on the crossings to inform drivings of their wrong doings, but the drivers just ignore them! We donīt see this working some how. Bolivio has some wacky ideas! On one road crossing, it was on a hill and Julie was crossing the road when a mini van decided to reverse. A very close shave indeed!
Everywhere you go you see Shoeshiners who wear Balaclavaīs (sorry about the spelling) - it is very intimidating/scary to see but we later found out that it is because they are embarassed about having a job as a shoeshiner.
That night we went out to a pub called Gulliverīs Travels - a very british pub. We have never waited so long for a meal and guess what.....Claireīs came last and was wrong!!
Monday
We decided to have a lazy morning with a late breakfast and a bit of shopping. That afternoon, we went on a city tour of La Paz - the easiest way to see the highlights of the city due to its size. We first drove around all the different markets, including one called Witches Market - on first site the market looks normal but as the name suggests it wasnīt!
There were dead and stuffed Caymans, Cats, Frogs, Llamas, Llamas Foetusīs, birds of preys and Owls etc
A small monolith
. Julie kissed a frog, hoping to find her Prince Charming but unfortunately it didnīt work, so instead we bought charms for love and money (we are still waiting for them to work!). We then drove around the prosperous parts of the City which have an enclosed security fence neighbourhood and on some roads Police Officers guarding the houses.
We visited Moon Valley, a valley which they say resembles the moon surface. It is quite a weird place, in that it is located in the middle of La Paz. We then saw an unimpressive Cathedral and Presidential Palace, not very aweinspiring. We ended the tour with a view of the whole city which is very impressive - it is huge but alot of it is illegally built.
Tuesday
We decided to wimp out of the "Most Dangerous Road in the World" as described by the Inter-American Development Bank. It is a road which you mountain bike down, which other vehicles can also be on but the road is only abit wider than a bus with a 400m sheer drop just to your right! The road is rock and not surfaced, iīm sure you can understand why we, the accident prone pair chickened out!
Some of our group did do this though and they said it was great but harrowing. We also chickened out over it because a week earlier a man died by falling over the edge and a number of people were killed by a transport bus because it burst a tyre and drove into them, sending them over the edge
A square in La Paz
. Instead, we decided to visit Tiwanaku, Boliviaīs most impressive archeological site. The site pre-dates Incaīs and it is suggested it dates from 12,000 BC, however, only 30% of the site has been excavated and what has been excavated has been restored very badly in our opinion.
One Archeologist restored the site to what he thought it should of looked like. They donīt have any money to excavate anymore but we were told the site earns in excess of $1 million per year - where does the money go!?!
There were a couple of good Monoliths to look at though.
10 new people joined our group today, so we are now up to 19 people - everyone is really nice. We went out for a group meal and found out one of female members had been mugged earlier in the day and spat at. This put a dampner on La Paz and we were glad to be leaving the next day.
Weīve been told there is to be a Referendum in a few days which could result in civil war. Sucre and Santa Cruz which are very rich cities want to be independent and alot of people donīt believe in the Presidentīs views to share the wealth of Bolivia (if we understood this correctly!). This is another reason we are glad to be leaving Bolivia but we will miss the cheapness of everything!
