Keeping the peace in La Paz
Trip Start
Jan 16, 2008
1
29
37
Trip End
Jan 01, 2009
Where I stayed
La Paz, Bolivia
Friday, May 30, 2008
Well we thought we´d left the cold behind, but had to bear it for another 12 hours on the bus into La Paz from Uyuni and it was, at times, unbearable. I think the bus had a fever as, one side of it was like a freezer and the other like a volcano! So there was a lot of disgruntled passengers! It was an overnight trip so we arrived in La Paz at around 7am. We did have some good luck when we got to the hostel though as it was Irish owned, called The Wild Rover and sold Guinness and Tayto´s (Irish crisps) so there was little home comfort there. Traveling to La Paz we met up with Tristan, (who we´d met briefly a few times in various spots in Argentina) and Carly, both from Tasmania, or Tazzie, as they prefer to call it! And also with Rachel and Emmanuel, from Canada, so at least there was a decent sized group of us to be able to laugh at bus trip!
We´d come to La Paz to take it easy, unfortunately this wasn´t to be the case as we signed up to do "Death Road", a mountain bike trip down one of the most dangerous roads in the world. The road itself used to be used as the main road through the mountains and as a result of the narrow, gravel filled track, it resulted in a lot of deaths over the years. Now a days though, it´s not as scary and is used mainly for bike trips and tour companies. We´d heard some horror stories of people falling off the cliff while cycling down it and were preparing for the worst. I wish I could say it was death defying and terrifying but to be honest it was quite tame, and ended up being a very good bike ride through some fantastic scenery. Although we got filthy dirty and rained on for most of it, it was amazing...apart from one really annoying Israeli guy in the group who got on everyone´s nerves so much he nearly became another statistic on the Death Road list!!!
La Paz city itself is very very big, and all the roads are on massively steep hills, which are tough climb up especially as cos of the altitude, 3,640 metres above sea level, were quite tough on the legs and the heart! It did however have hundreds of markets spreading for miles, where absolutely anything can be bought, from electrical goods to lollipops! Like the rest of Bolivia, La Paz is quite a good bit cheaper than back home and at times we all felt guilty spending so much there, mainly cos the people are so hard working there and have very little to show for it. A lot of the indigenous people could be seen powering up up through the steep hills with huge loads all day long when we struggled with carrying a shopping bag up! Although parts of the city were very beautiful, especially around the main plaza where the Presidential Palace is located, other parts were over filled with cars, smog and people trying to sell anything they could on the side of the road.
Back in the land of the The Wild Rover hostel however, there was the important matter of the Heroes and Villans theme night. So obviously as the name entails, everyone had to dress up as either a hero or a villan. Eoin chose Clark Kent, I went as Spiderman, Tristan decided on Guile from the Streetfighter video game, and Carly went as, well, herself, based on a t-shirt she bought with her initials on it,CH,and then as you can see from the photos, added lots of tinsel and colour. Eoin came up with another name for the CH on the t-shirt, unfortunately I can´t print it here, so I´ll let you use your imaginations!
The night went great and we were definitely the best dressed room in the hostel. The funniest part of it all was when we went to an all night night-club and left at 11am the next morning. The locals on the street who were going about their business we suddenly met with Superman, Spiderman and a bright red and yellow Carly coming out of a bar. The taxi man didn´t know what was going on when he picked us up! On the way back to the hostel a bus had a mild crash into the side of the taxi, so yet again we got some very strange looks when everyone could see who was in the taxi, and not one of us could prevent the crash!!! We eventually got to bed at about 12pm the next day and I was delighted to be able to sleep in a Spiderman costume, something I´ve not done since I was 6 years old...it´s the little things really!
So we ended our time in La Paz on a good note and headed for Cusco in Peru and planned to see Machu Pichu and the Inca sights, which will all be in the next one.
All the best
Jim
