La Paz, La Paz, Bolivia
Thursday, October 21, 2010
I was wrong when I said in the last blog that I was using the slowest internet connection in the world. It turns out that in the middle of the jungle what internet you do have is incredibly slow. Therefore a quick update and no photos. We arrived in
La Paz on Saturday, which is a wonderful city. It is set within a canyon so you descend into it on the bus which gives you a great view of all the houses clinging onto the side of the mountain. On Sunday we met our friend Martha at the airport and spent the day wondering around
La Paz giving it a thorough explore. On our walk we stumbled into a huge street market that went on for blocks and blocks, were offered a tour of the jail, found the armed forces street party and saw a dancing procession. On the Monday we travelled to
Sorata from where we were picked up for our current trek. The first two days were mostly downhill mountain biking. This was tough going, even on jeep tracks, as it was steep and rocky. However we enjoyed the scenery and despite El going over the handlebars three times, avoided any injuries more serious than bruises. On the second days cycling there was more up hill and having descended about 3000m the temperatures were much higher so for much of the day we enjoyed the scenery from the relative comfort of the support jeep. Today is the third day on the trek and we have swapped our bikes for a motorised canoe. We are currently passing through gold country where locals made the equivalent of 30 pounds a day panning 1 gram of gold from the hillside. We´re continuing our trip along the river with some side trekking and will be spending the weekend in
Rurrenabaque.
James
