La Paz

Trip Start Jan 18, 2007

101

104

Trip End Sep 01, 2007

Loading Map

Map your own trip!

Map Options

Show trip route

Hide lines

Flag of Bolivia La Paz, Bolivia
Sunday, July 22, 2007

Because we missed out Potosi, we now had 4 full days in La Paz instead of 2. These were not difficult to fill, as La Paz is a crazy, bustling city with a million markets all over it. The first day we were there however, the entire city, it seemed, was on strike, as the government wanted to move the status of capital to Sucre, and the people of La Paz were not having any of it. Once we found the only hotel open for breakfast, we had an explore and wandered down to the main street where a lot of protests and marches were going on, peacefully, which was nice. Most shops were closed, taxis were not working, but some market stalls were still going so we had a little mooch, otherwise having a quite-ish day, until the evening, Mel had booked us in for a group meal at a random bar calle RamJam, which did a fine line in Mojitos....of which we managed to drink the abr dry...!! The bar also sold pure oxygen, which you paid for in 15min slots and wore the airplane-style mask to breateh it in. Supposedly it makes you really giggly and light headed, but after many mojitos we were all feeling that anyway and couldnt really tell. It was a great night, despite me almost knocking myself out on the door on the way back to the hotel (people in bolivia are really short and the height of doors reflects this!)

The next morning we had to go and pay up for our gravity-assisted mountain biking trip that we were doing on monday, and once we had done this, went on a recovery trip to the classy establishment that is burger king. I had also spotted a cinema showing the new harry potter film and was determined to go see it, so after wandering around the markets in a futile attempt to find the infamous electronics black market, a few of us went to see that. I�m glad i read the book again the other day as the film was so fast I would have ben v confused otherwise. After the film I found the answer to my prayers on a random stall just outside the cinema....ripped off DVDs, including....the entire 2nd series of prison break...for 3 quid! hallelujah.....I know what I�ll be doing when i get home! After last night�s shenanigans everyone was pretty knackered so it was an early night for most.

The following day was a sunday, and there was more shopping to be done...I am totally addicted to the lovely dangly earrings they make here, and they are so cheap I ended up with 10 pairs....a girl can never have too many earrings!

In the morming we also headed over toe the Coca museum, top find out a bit more about this leaf that �no es drogua�(isn�t a drug). Coca is the main product of Bolivia, and is chewed to help with altitude sickness and to give more energy. It is also the leaf from which cocaine is made, hence the controversy surrounding it. The museum was pretty interesting, and we all learned more about cocaine than we had evern known, including the fact that many countriesm UK included, are allowed to legally produce a certain amaount of coke per year for purposes such as medical drug production.

Me and katy also had a weird coincidental experience when on a street corner outside our hotel we bumped into a freidn from our uni course, James, who was travelling and going otu with anotehr freidn of mine from biology, Rowena. We couldn�t believe it, we had known he was in S.Am, but not that he was going to be in La Paz....sometimes the world is just too small!

A bit later me and Alistair eventually found the eluisve electronics section of the black marketm but unfortunately couldn�t find either the camera battery or memory card that we wanted, but did succeeed in getting more cheapo DVDs, yay! It�s a good job I�m going to be chucking away most of my old clothes before I come back or I�d never fit everything into my bag!

It was another early night as we had to be up nice and early the next morning for our mountain biking down �death road�.......