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La Paz
On a cloudy day Gringoes....as the South Americans call us tourists, stick out a mile. Not just by the colour of our skin but we are the people standing in various states of respiratory stress gasping for breath as we climb the hills. And La Paz is a city built on the hills so it´s not so easy to avoid the panting as it is set at over 3000m. You can´t help but be impressed by the scenery......it´s like the city is built in a canyon with the walls on either side stacked high with houses, with narrow streets, congestion & chaos lurking in between. The backdrop to the city is the Cordillera Real.......mountains that are snow-capped & on a fine day, glisten against a blue sky. Not bad to look at!! And finally it´s not the IRA or bandits that have taken over the streets but these are the shoe-shine men that you see stooped over on every corner.....all carrying little metal boxes & wearing ballaclavas.....a bit frigthening when you see them coming towards you in the early morning or evening dusk..... until you get used to them!!
Anyway apart from huffing & panting the first 2 days in La Paz, I did
La Paz
Street life near the cemetery a bit of sight-seeing about town......having the odd hot chocolate in Alexanders Cafe on route....when you find something good, it would be foolish to deny yourself!! It´s a nice city to explore with great fruit stalls blending shakes & whipping up salads in no time. Day 3 I did what is called the Death Road to Coroico......most backpackers do it & rave about it......it´s one of those "must-do" things for senseless young people. The scenery along the way is beautiful. The reason it is so called is because a lot of people have died on this road over the years. The first 35km of the cycle is mostly downhill & on a paved decent road. The latter 30km is on a dirt-track (now closed to public traffic) about 3m wide, that runs downhill with a steep drop-off on one side. The type of fall that you wouldn´t survive. Before we started, the guides emphasized again & again the importance of keeping on the correct side of the road because only the day before, 2 tourists had died on the first stretch of the cycle....& a car-full of 7 Bolivians also plunged over the edge of the cliff, killing them. So
La Paz
.................. it is deservedly named....unfortunately. Another tourist had died on the actual death road the previous weekend.....so forget the disclaimers, just take it easy & enjoy the scenery.
The following day I arranged to go trekking for 3 days. The Choro Trail starts at an altitude of about 4800m in La Cumbre & descends to about 2000m near Coroico. So over the course of 3 days, it reveals a very different landscape as the altitude drops. Thankfully the first day is all downhill so it was easy going with some hills the following days to remind us that we weren´t invincible. There were 3 of us on our trek with 2 guides to carry our tent & supplies....& because I was the only girl I got my own tent. Spoilt you might say but if you saw the toilet facilities you would quickly change your mind. The first night was grand...a decent sit-on toilet by the river but the second night was a pit......wooden planks either side with maggots & whatever other insects like to live in that type of environment below. The smell was revolting. I´ll happily hang behind the others for the natural toilet thank you. Both nights
La Plaza
La Paz...near government buildings we had a campfire....mainly because we were so cold & once it got dark at 6.30pm there was nothing else to do. So I encouraged our small group to join me in gate-crashing someone else´s fire......& it was worth it for that hour of heat because a very cold night followed....too cold for sleep. We repaid the favour & set up our own fire the following night.....well solicited so that our guides would do it for a cheap price!! A a great roaring fire they set up.
The final day we finished up in Coroico...a small town with restaurants & great views down into the valley all around. That´s where I spent a very quiet birthday...but not without a birthday feast of course. The following day I spent there too.....the swimming pool in the hostel had finally filled but was arctic cold so I didn´t last long. Apparently there are some great walks about the area but because I´m flying solo now they aren´t the safest to do alone so I didn´t go. A lazy day was had!
Waking up to the rain the next day wasn´t so bad because I was leaving...my only worry was that my
bus up north would be cancelled...or would slip off the edge of the cliff on the dirt-roads......neither of which happened but not without a sleepless night of worry as we snaked around the edges of mountains, on roads with hardly enough room for one vehicle let alone two. The road to Rurrenabaque was probably the first one where I was really scared.....I spent most of the time wishing I had flown so that I wouldn´t have to endure this 20 hours of misery. We got there safely in the end......here´s to another 20 hours of nail-biting back to La Paz.
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