Within La Paz

Have now spent 4 days in La Paz and it´s a fascinating city. We arrived at 6am(!) before dawn at El Alto Airport, the worlds´ highest airport. The runway is 5km long to allow planes time to slow down! The plane did take a long time to slow down due to the thinner air at altitude but it was a perfectly smooth landing.

All went well through customs etc and we met up with our driver to take us to the hotel in central La Paz. Checked in. Went to sleep! Woke up a few hours later, feeling more or less OK. Rob had a bad headache but I was fine, surprisingly.

So far, we have been on a walking tour of the City which took in the "Political centre". I put in " because the Bolivians can´t agree on where the capital should be(!) Some want the capital to be Sucre, others in Santa Cruz and others in La Paz. No-one seems quite sure how or when, but La Paz is the defacto capital.

Walked around their equivalent of Trafalgar Square complete with flying rats otherwise known as pigeons, had a peep inside the impressive Metropolitan Cathedral, which is fairly spartan but has incredibly high ceilings with stunning stained glass windows. Absolutely gorgoeus in its simplicity, somehow.

We saw St Francis´Church, walked through the Witchcraft Market where they sell Llama Foetus, which is supposed to bring you good luck, I think. I confined myself to buying a couple pairs earrings as I didn´t think UK Customs would allow preserved foetus through... The Witchcraft Market is fascinating though with all sorts of herbs, colourful liquids etc on display.

Today, while Rob is knackering himself by climbing to 5000m to the world´s highest Ski Run - all 750metres of it; I visited the Archaelogical Museum, which was really interesting with artefacts from Tiwanaku and mummies which pre-date the Egyptian mummies. They were in excellent condition. One mummy was of a small bay who still had some hair to its skull. Amazingly well preserved.

Have just visited the Museum of Contemporary Arts, which was startling to say the least, coming from where displays were of objects 2500 years BC to another place where objects were definitely 2007 AD was quite a contrast, but it´s interesting to see the modern view.

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