Dangerous living at the top of the world...
Trip Start
Dec 14, 2007
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174
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Trip End
Mar 16, 2009
La Paz,
Bolivia
Friday, December 19, 2008
As with many large modern cities air pollution is a problem and since La Paz is set in a deep valley, it often seemed choked with pollution. At times it was difficult to breathe especially when you were left out of breath after climbing steep cobble stone roads at the impressive altitude of 3660m earning La Paz the title of one of the highest cities in the world. Since the city was founded in the mid fifteen hundreds it's steeped in history and boasts many beautiful old churched and buildings.
Since we'd arrived just before Christmas the city was bustling with people frantically doing their last minute Christmas shopping. Street stalls were set-up everywhere selling everything from Christmas decorations to cheap clothing and toys. We often had to fight our way through the narrow crowded isles to escape the shopping madness. Sadly this was also the time the less fortunate streamed into the city as beggars and their children could be seen on most street corners. It was hard not to be effected by this sight but we also knew money wouldn't solve this problem.
After we'd settled in to our basic hostel room we started doing a little research on dinner options for the evening and felt we'd saved enough over the past few days to spend a little extra on a good meal. Since Bolivia was not well known for its culinary delights we were delighted to find out there were a few surprises in stall. A short walk through the downtown streets and we rather surprised when we passed by many bakeries stocked with delicious looking cakes and tarts. Another regular sight were stores specialising in saltena's a type of pie/pastry that come in a variety of variations and are stuffed full of meat, vegetables, potatoes, boiled egg, sometimes olives and a slightly tangy gravy.
We felt that we deserved a little more than a pie for dinner so made our way to what turned out to be a slightly more up market part of town to a restaurant called La Comedie Art-Cafe Restaurant. We were amazed to find a chic looking restaurant, strangely in the shape of a ship with beautifully decorated tables, a cosy bar and welcoming waiters. We decided to test the waters and shared a delicious starter platter of crispy white bread, pâté, cured ham and various cheeses. If it wasn't all so tasty we might not have got through the large starter and fortunately felt we had a little room left for a main.
Based on the size of the starter we decided to share a main and ordered a portion the delicious sounding onion glazed pork ribs. There were as succulent as they sounded and were a perfect accompaniment to the Chilean wine we selected. The restaurant surpassed all our expectations and would rank as one of the best we've tried in South America, yummy! We left realising how privileged we were to be able to afford such a fantastic meal when so many out there were going without.
Besides some great food La Paz also has some top tourist attractions in and around the city including cycling the notorious 'death road', mountain and glacier climbing, guided prison visit, fascinating city walking tours and of course the unique cholitas (female) wrestling. We didn't have enough time and money to partake in all these activities so we narrowed down the list slightly and got going.
Every Sunday evening crowds gather to watch the hugely popular wrestling cholitas a uniquely Bolivian female wrestling match. The fairly heavy set woman dressed in their traditional attire including long colourful skirts, blouses and bowler hats looked all sweet and innocent, that was till the claws came out! As with international WWF wrestling each match starts with a build-up to get the crowd revved up for the match, much of this includes insulting each other, water and powder throwing before the ladies tear into each other.
The ladies were highly entertaining and didn't hold back against each other and even saw the fight leave the ring and ended up on some bewildered spectator laps. The whole evening got a little weird when the next set of cholita's were paired up against men wrestlers and subsequently started taking a beating. I could see the horrified look on the faces of some girls in our group and I was sure they were thinking this was border line woman abuse. At the end of the day it was all just an act but the highlight was defiantly seeing cholita on cholita.
There are many expensive and inexpensive guided walking tour in and around La Paz but we decided to create our own little tour taking in the main sights like the historic area around the San Francisco plaza, the witches market with all its strange dried animals and concoctions as well as a visit to the coca museum. Even though the coca museum was a static display, consisting mainly of photographs and a 30 page booklet describing the photos in English, it was still fascinating and worth the money spent. There were so many facts we never knew about the famous little leaf and how it was not only used for cocaine production but many medicinal purposes and even in flavouring coca-cola.
The coca leaf is an important product in the lives of many Bolivians who have traditionally been chewing and using the leaves for hundreds of years. The current president, Evo Morales who is surprisingly the countries first truly indigenous president, is fighting to protect the coca growing industry for this very reason but is also at the same time, strongly opposed to the production of cocaine. The US however would like all coca production to be eradicated to possibly stem the flow of cocaine production. Evo however is basically saying "don't punish the chewing Bolivians, rather fix the problem in your own back yard", thus one of the reasons for all the political conflict between Bolivia and the West.
Coca chewing aside, La Paz certainly did have a lot to keep us busy but we decided to spend Christmas in the Salar de Uyuni the world's largest salt flat so had to get moving. It was really important for us to be able to attend a church service on Christmas day but we anticipated that their might not be any churches in the middle of the salt flats so we were delighted to find an English church in La Paz. We attended a beautiful pre-Christmas service and were welcomed by almost the entire congregation who made us feel right at home.
Finding a tour to the salt flats was an exercise in itself, there are hundreds of tour operators in La Paz all promising you the same wonderful trip but sadly there are also many horror stories of trips going badly wrong. So we spent an entire morning walking from operator to operator comparing prices and itineraries. At the end of the day price wasn't the biggest factor but rather quality as we wanted this to be a Christmas to remember. After much deliberation and searching the internet for reviews we decided to book a tour with a company called El Solario, not because we felt they were the best but simply because we felt the most comfortable with them. (Read on to find out what was promised and what was delivered.)
Before we headed off to the salt flats, there was one more little activity we or rather I could not miss out on and that was the cycle down the 'most dangerous road in the world'. Inge-Marie who was not too keen on the cycling thing opted to participate in an equally dangerous activity for the day, shopping on her own!! So read the next instalment to find out if the road is as dangerous as the legend tells and whether our budget survived the shopping ordeal.....
