La Paz - Hanging on the canyon´s edge

Welcome to the funnel, La Paz Bolivia

It´s sort of like a funnel. A vast suburbia on the flat antiplano and La Paz plunges down a canyon. They say if you get lost, just walk down hill and you´ll eventually run into the main road through town. But first you have to get here....

After Isla Del Sol, we tried to hook up with the same bus company that facilitated the smooth border crossing route into Bolivia. We made it to the office and bought our tickets for the 1:30 departure. Or so we thought... Unfortunately we were hanging around the store front and we were picked to be bumped off the bus and put onto another local bus. We were pretty confused as to what was going on at first, buy realized our friend Grover was not much of a friend after all. And Tour Peru bus company was no longer in our good graces. I should have found Grover and demanded the difference in fare, but figured it was not worth the hassle as our new bus people were nice enough.

Back on the local busses, stopping to fill up the radiator occasionally, great Bolivian folk music, people crammed about and bumping along the road we went.

The trip to La Paz requires you to get off the bus and take a passenger boat across a narrow section of the lake, while the bus precariously goes on a flat barge like vessel. This is another aspect of ingenunity and great efficiency as the whole affair took about ten minutes and we went rambling on.

You approach the city of La Paz from the top, through El Alto - which is actually a bustling city that is as large as La Paz, about 2 million people live in the two cities together. After passing through the crowded streets of El Alto you get to the edge of the canyon and tumble down the steep streets into the city. It is amazing to see cars and buses of all conditions successfully maneuver these streets. It is a testament to their brakes and transmissions that they all survive hills.

On to our hotel for the next 3 days - Hotel Fuentes which was another great recommendation from our friend Ashley, and in a good central location, near the Witches Market and lots of tour companies. We settled in and quickly ventured out to explore the buslting market and tourist barrio that we have landed in.

What did we do for three days??? Walked around quite a bit and checked out different markets, the obligitory architectural highlights and the food. We ventured into what is called the Mercado Negro (Black Market) - which offers just about anything you could ever need to buy. From styrofoam birthday signs (featuring Sponge Bob or ¨Esponja Boob¨as it was called here) to envelopes to hard hats and everything in between. Most of the daily commerce is done in this market type setting as there are very few if any {supermarkets} as we all know then in the states. Everything is bought on the streets.

...including dried llama fetuses which are for sale up and down the street that our hotel is on. Why would anyone want to buy the fetus of a llama? It is used as a blessing for a new house being built. The fetus is taken and buried under a corner of the houses foundation and is said to bring good luck to those that occupy that space. Hmmm, were planning on an addition to our place.....

These fetuses were found in the Witches Market on the very street our hotel is on. An interesting collection of potions and various indigenous plants are for sale here for different rituals. These are obviously geared for the local population and just happen to be sold on the busiest tourist street in La Paz where you can book any tour within the 3 nearest countries...

We found several restaurants that were some of the best of our travels thus far. The best dinner was the llama plate we had, as well as the wonderful Lebonese restaurant we found as well. The best snack we found was a Salteña - a local pastry filled with meat or vegetables. We found these at a local restaurant specializing in the wonderful treats; but you can find them on virtually every street corner. They are messy and you need to watch the locals eat them first, to learn the art of how to avoid a big mess. These things are from one of our favorite places in Argentina - Salta (where we found the best empañadas). It reminded us of our culinery delights we found there....

Our time in La Paz was spent relaxing and wandering the endless, but quite hilly, streets and finally deciding when and how to get to the jungle. We choose to chance the flight to Rurrenabaque and hope for the best as the flights are often cancelled and diverted due to poor runway conditions.

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