Chilling (literally) in La Paz

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I'm not entirely sure what I was expecting La Paz to be like - but it definitely wasn't what I was expecting. It's basically a modern city, very noisy and dirty, which is a shame because it ought to be beautiful. Its setting, in the middle of a canyon, in sight of the snow covered Cordillera Real, is gorgeous - when you can see it. Mostly the view is obscured by the 1960s and 70s tower blocks on the main street, with newer houses literally clinging to the sides of the canyon. Very few buildings from the colonial era remain, which just a few streets and buildings, such as the Iglesia San Francisco and the cathedral, left. So from an aesthetic point of view, La Paz is a bit of a disappointment. But it makes up for it in other ways.

I arrived early in the morning after spending the night on the coldest bus I've ever been on in my life. Thankfully the man sitting next to me kindly let me use a corner of his blanket, otherwise I think I would have frozen. Even so, I hardly slept at all, so after checking in to my hotel the first thing I did was go to bed for a few hours. The hotel I stayed in was in the main tourist area around Calle Sagárnaga. The guidebook described it as a 'warren of cobbled streets', neglecting to mention that they're all lined with souvenir and handicraft shops. You can't walk five metres without someone trying to persuade you to buy something. Despite this being ever-so-slightly annoying, one of the first things I did was go out and buy a few presents and souvenirs...after all, it's so cheap!

La Paz maybe isn't the most pleasant city for wandering around in, but there's a definite buzz in the city. The streets are lined with market stalls, some of them selling the aforementioned souvenirs, others more everyday items. Most of them are staffed by women wearing the traditional bowler hats and skirts. The streets themselves are absolutely rammed with traffic, mainly taxis and innumerable minivans, which operate like buses - the route and number is posted on the front, and then someone sits by the door shouting out the route. I'm sure it's all completely logical, but it seemed completely incomprehensible to me.

As well as wandering around and buying souvenirs, I also went to a few museums. The Coca Museum, which is all about the coca plant, is fascinating. It explains the long history of coca-chewing in the Andean area, which predates the manufacture of cocaine by thousands of years. Amazingly, I learnt that the USA and the UK (and a few other countries not including Bolivia) are actually legally allowed to produce cocaine. And that when it was first introduced Coca-Cola used to include cocaine. Nowadays they just add coca leaves, to enhance the flavour.

I also visited the ruins of Tiwanaku, an ancient civilisation that existed for over 2,000 years prior to the Incas. While it was quite interesting to visit, and to learn more about the civilisation, there wasn't a huge amount to see. The site is still under excavation (and probably will be for some considerable time, thanks to a lack of money), with a few statues and reconstructions. Considering that the civilisation lasted for such a long time, it's quite sad that this is all that remains of it.

Being at an altitude of around 3,500m, the one thing I really didn't like about La Paz is that it gets incredibly cold at night - around freezing or so, and they don't really go in for heating in these parts. So in search of some warmth, my next destination was Coroico, in the sub-tropical Yungas, north of La Paz.

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