La Paz
Trip Start
Jan 01, 2009
1
17
34
Trip End
Mar 07, 2009
La Paz,
Bolivia
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
The drive to La Paz, the (administrative) capital city of Bolivia first took us through the a satelite city to Le Paz of Rialto, it is growing fast but still very poor and there is a high crime rate. Carlos also pointed out the numerous half completed houses along the roads were due tot he fact that there is a higher rate of tax on completed houses...that makes no sense to us either!
Bolivia's major exports are textiles, agriculture and drugs. There is a huge cocaine problem in the country which they are finding difficult to control. From the state of disarray at the border and the random search of our luggage we would have to agree.
As always the conversation turned to food, the traditional Bolivian dish is made of beans, cheese and corn- i think we could have guessed the corn element. We also learned that seafood is very expensive as Bolivia is land locked having lost its access to the Pacific Ocean to Chile in the Pacific war.
Arriving into La Paz in the evening, we were greeted my a vastly lit valley, it was so much bigger and the layout so different to what we had expected. The city is 3,800m above sea level and there are currently 2m people living in La Paz, it is densely populates and there is very little green. The streets are very narrow, and taking corners can be very dangerous as we found out the next day on our city tour. La Paz means peace and was first discovered when the Spanish found gold.
The current president of Bolivia is the first indigenous president and there is a real drive to improve literacy and education. In reality, it is always more difficult, the rich children go to school, whereas even if the poorer children have schools available to them they are often required to work to bring money in for the family.
Right, we think thats enough facts on Bolivia for you all to digest, it was a lot for us to take...Carlos spoke a LOT!
We had a tour of the city the following morning, we went to the main plaza where the presidents office is based, we toured some of the outskirts, the football stadium (Carlos was quick tell us that Bolivia was the first team to beat Brazil in that stadium in 1993, although the Brazilians blamed it on the altitude!). We then strolled around the festival of miniatures, apparently its a really popular festival that they hold every year for the whole of January. You may be wondering what is it exactly, but it is exactly what you might be thinking.....everyday things but miniature sized....toys, cooking utensils, gardening equipment, food etc...we found it funny and quite entertaining!
That evening we took what was to be the most horrific coach journey of our lives, 12 hours, overnight, on a local bus (apparently all the tourist buses were out of service) with no toilet, on roads so uneven we could have been in a mini earthquake. There are limited ways of travelling to Uyuni so we had to suck it up and get on with it, we just thought about the amazing things we were going to see there and that it would all be worth it in the end!
