Womblekisses's travel blogs:
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The highest capital in the world
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 What a city! It certainly is different with all those slopes, so steep they feel verticle and so many sellers, how on earth do they make a living. At the moment the pavements are liberally scattered with colourful carnival costumes and masks as the wide skirted ladies sit passively awaiting customers. Anywhere does for a pitch, so long as you have something to sell, from the odd pack of sweets, a few hankies and the most extraordinary for me an old lady sitting against the wall with a small pile of pigs´ trotters before her.
 There is a magnificent, some might say somewhat over ornate, cathedral dedicated to San Fransico (St Francis). Guided tours of the ex-monastary, where the Franciscan monks built their church in order to feed the poor, are exceptional and take a couple of hours at least with an English speaking guide who is also a willing student. (and teacher). Many may find the large old paintings (14th-18th centuries) a bit tedious, but nobody would want to miss the walk on the red tiled roof. This was a privilege and fascinating to boot, a wealth of information, a bird´s eye view of the polluted streets below where blue/black smoke is the norm and colourful ancient buses pour noxious gases into the atmosphere. It is not just the altitude that hampers breathing. Anyone visiting the city will find the cathedral easily enough, so please do try the tour and hope you get Hugo Luis as your guide.
View from the hotel
The Rosario hotel (not the usual back packers choice) is comfortably handy for all the markets (including the amazing witches market ... all those dried out birds ... yuk!) and considering the excellent friendly service good value for money. The Contiental Hotel (an HI hostel) looks good and is just along the road from the Rosario and cheaper of course.
Getting to La Paz was quite an experience with so much rain our train was held up for hours, but having looked at one or two blogs from other travellers it seems this is not exceptional. Headlines in the UK ... normal in Bolivia. Our journey was aided by a Bolivian family who run a small tour company in Uyuni (Blue Line); perhaps it was our great age which made them take us under their wing, but I suspect they are simply nice people and happened to be going to La Paz on the same night as us. It certainly made our journey much easier having locals to guide us to the right place for luggage collection, taxis and the bus from Oruro to La Paz. Actually being met and delivered safely to a hotel by our host´s sister seemed and exceptional kindness.
The city like the country has entered the 21st century (just), but also keeps up old traditions. Where else would you hear the click, clicking of a typewriter. A row of ´scribes´ by some official type buildings produce documents for customers; in the post office a very efficient, suited lady sits, fingers finding the right keys. I feel sure if I tried to use a typewriter these days I would be terribly inaccurate ... no delete key! On the other hand Bolivians who do use computers (Windows 98) also have the good old dot matrix printer the sound of which I had almost forogotten.
The bus tour of the city is worthwhile (I think). On our tour which took around 4/5 hours we risked a seat in the hot sun upstairs, back a bit so it wasn`t quite so hot ... as we left we moved forward under cover as the first spots of rain appeared and it just got worse. However we learned that Bolivia once had a coast line which it lost to Chile. In fact, Bolivia has been in battles with all its neighbours and sadly lost territory on each occasion. There have also been a succession of dictators and despite coming out of this period the country is now suffering some kind of recession.
The lasting impression of La Paz will be the ladies with those skirts. I wonder how an item of clothing which is precisely the same as all the others can also be so different. The vast array of colours, patterns and types of material make each one individual and on Sunday there were many glossy or sparkling fabrics. Another enduring memory will be the mini buses which move slowly through the traffic jams, one head out of a window shouting the names of places all indecipherable to us. Also heavy blankets on the bed, the night chill and (mostly) friendly people. Sadly the fumes and the problems getting enough oxygen at night will also linger in my mind.
 One of the many colourful markets which helps to counter the dreary, chilly
weather.
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| 6. | The highest capital in the world - La Paz, Bolivia Jan 29, 2008 (  5 ) |
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