From the highest city to the highest Capital...
Trip Start
Jan 12, 2008
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20
151
Trip End
Mar 19, 2009
La Paz,
Bolivia
Thursday, February 28, 2008
Still after getting our things together we found a hotel close to the bus station. It was just what we needed....soft bed....cable TV....hot, clean shower...cheap....and the major plus point was that the room was available straight away. There were a few downers....for a start it was up the top of ten flights of stairs which at that altitude was not the nicest thing to do......also as we were trying to finish our sleep the military centre opposite started practicing their marching band routine at 8am!!!!!
La Paz is one of the worst amazing cites we have ever been to
San Fransico Church
. Set in a huge valley with the main business strip running through the bottom and the suburbs nestled up the walls of the valley. It really is take your breath away stuff and that´s not just walking up the step streets. After having a quick walk around and reaching the Plaza Pedro D Murillo we found that there was a major protest march place so we decided to retire for a cold beverage and call it a day.The next day we were on the move again to a new hostel closer to town with the plus point that it brewed it´s own beer!!!! After dropping our bags off we were up for a full 2nd day of city sight seeing. But again there was yet another protest match!!! This time just ladies in their full traditional dress with multi layered dresses and little bowler hats.....I just hope protest matches become an Olympic sport because Bolivia will kick arse!!!! Still we heading on wondered up and down the streets taking in the place and all the marker stalls and shops. We even down our first bit of shopping but at this prices you can´t resist......but the extra large underpants I purchased may have put into of doubt any chance of starting a family anytime soon!!!!! We ended the day with a typical Bolivian dish.....an Indian Curry run by some British ex pats. I´d actually forgotten how hot the curries get back home and the warning given by the waiter was taken more of a challenge then a caution. Still with a few layers of stomach lining gone and after setting the world record of how many beers you can drink in half an hour we left it there to return to our room for an early night because tomorrow we´ll be visiting our first Inca ruins of the trip!!!
We decided the visit the ruins at Tiahuanaco 72 kms west of La Paz by a tour rather then independently for the comfort and convenience.....this all change we the bus turned up and it was the size of a van but with seats and windows and was the same as the ones we´ve seen with locals crammed into them carting them up the hills
San Fransico Church
. Now it was our turn to be crammed into one of these and a almost twice the size of a local it was the ´comfort´ tour we were expecting. Still the guide was informative and with a army camouflage sun hat we soon nicknamed him ´the colonel´!!! The trip took us up of the edge of the city valley and the sight over the city was fantastic. It was a great trip through the outer suburbs of El Alto with all the hassle and bustle and on to Tiahuanaco. The tour started with a visit to the museum we´re our guide showed us around. Through the original Tiwanaku people before the Incas reached the area. It ended with a artist impression on what the site would have looked like.....which was just as well because the ruins did take quite a bit of imagination to visualise what they were. The most interesting thing was the corner stones with holes cut out in such a way to project the persons voice.....our guide demonstrated this on a couple of times with alarming gusto so that the whole site knew exactly what they did!!!We returned to La Paz to prepare for our last point in Bolivia on Lake Titicaca.
