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Published: January 28th 2006
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Witchmarket
Vegetarian's nightmare Back in Puno, we bumped into a few fellow backpackers we had met en route and decided to celebrate the occasion with a slap up meal and some pisco sours (local drink). 'Slap up' in Peruvian terms means a 'hefty' food bill of 35 Soles each! this equates to six pounds back home!! It was nice to see familiar faces again.
So it was a 'muy triste adios' to Peru, the land of the Incas after our six week stint. We loved the country and what it had to offer; the hospitable people, the ma-husive and very impressive Andes, the never-ending deserts, the ancient ruins and sacred valleys, the pre-Inca sites, and not forgeting of course our time with Bruce Peru. But once again it was time to groove on. South America is a huge continent and with a 4 1/2 month time frame there is a limit to what you can do.
So across the border into Bolivia we went. Now, we have crossed a fair few borders in our time and thought crossing the border into Bolivia would be more tricky than it turned out to be. In fact, it was incredibly civil and well-organised, probably the
Graffiti
Go Evo Go! easiest yet. After a lunch stop in Copacabana, on the Bolivian side of Lake Titicaca, we boarded a local bus to La Paz with some trepidation as we had heard a few horror stories about the dodgy Bolivian transport and even dodgier Bolivian roads. However, I am pleased to report that aside from all the bumps and sever lack of knee space, we arrived in one piece. The journey is actually very scenic. The road is pretty straight (apart from the bit where they load the bus onto its own personal barge and ship it across the lake!) and is if you manage to get a seat on the left you can admire the gigantic snow-capped Andean mountains in the distance. This makes up for any discomfort in my books.
This is a good time to be in Bolivia as on 18th December 2005, Evo Morales, member of the left-wing MAS party (Movement towards socialism), became the first indigenous candidate to be elected President of Bolivia. He emerged from a tumultuous period in Bolivia’s politics and vows to fight for nationalisation, real democracy and to oppose poverty and racism. La Paz was still alive with post-election fervour and we
Bus on Barge
Safe as houses??? were happy to soak it up.
As you arrive in El Alto, which is a new city perched dramatically on the rim of the canyon, you can get a good view of La Paz which lies at the bottom of the steep canyon and is ringed by snow-peaked mountains. La Paz is the highest capital city in the world at 4000m above sea level. This means that nights are cold, but the sun is very strong during the day. This drastic temperature change is a bit odd and takes a while to get use to. For once, the weather was on our side and we had 3 rain free days.
We'd arranged to meet up with Annie, from Melbourne at the hotel. It was so nice to see her again, she keeps us entertained. Our hotel (Majestic-very good) was close by to the infamous Mercado de Hechiceria (Witchcraft Market) So we explored this by night to add to the spook of it all. It sells charms, herbs and all sorts of lotions and potions. Above the stalls hang llama foetuses, armadillo shells, dead bats, and other gruesome animal carcasses which they believe ward off evil spirits and bring
good fortune. If you say so!..... Also on sale in the markets is 'Ekeko'. He is the God of good fortune and plenty. He is quite a sweet looking chap with a pot belly, short little legs and a huge smiley face, this description may remind you of someone else we all know and love 😉 he he. Anyway this chap is made out of plaster of paris and comes laden with various household items, sweets, streamers and normally a cigarette hanging from his mouth. The idea is that whatever it is you desire (house, car, university degree etc....), you can buy in minature and place beside the Ekeko. This gets blessed by an Aymara priest and all being well, you receive it within the year. Nice idea we thought but no minature yacht to be found or babies in minature come to think of it! We also stumbled upon the smoking frogs. Not sure what they simbolise but they looked funny...see picture..
Strolling along the streets you see vendors selling all sorts of obscure and random products ranging from toilet seats to stacks of every nut know to man and prawn crackers the size of planets. There is
Witches Market
Llamas... dead ones! a very impressive and colourful fruit market but, on taking a photo, we were the victim of a flying banana attack. The Indians are very suspicious and believe that if you take their photo, you steal their spirit. We weren't aware of this at the time. I don't think the bananas care either way...
We saw more Indians in their traditional get up in La Paz than any other capital city in S.Am so far. It was a weird but pleasant sight to see the mix of cultures side by side in a big city; rotound indigenous folk with their bowler hats and big bums walking around amongst the city dwellers and tourists.
We baked in the sun as we meandered around the rocky outcrops and towering mud spires that make up the Valle de la Luna (Moon Valley). Many years of erosion have created weird rock formations giving the feel of being in a real lunar landscape, we highly recommend visiting this place. Dunc particularly enjoyed pretending he was in Star Trek.
There are some excellent museums in La Paz. The Museo de Metales Preciosos has superb Inca gold artefacts, ceramics and archaelogical exhibits in basement
Witchmarket
Smoking Frogs!! vaults. El Museo de la Coca (Coca museum) is a must. As the name implies, it is devoted to the cocoa plant and is packed with displays explaining the history of the plant, its cultural significance, political implications, and medical values.
We forwent biking the 'World's most dangerous Road' as my knee started playing up and the heavens opened on the day in question. We think its over-hyped anyway and at the price of $35 each we also decided there were better things to spend money on.
Despite its size, La Paz doesn't have a huge city feel and the hilly, cobbled streets make for an interesting layout. The disparity between those that have and those that don't is quite apparent with a drive through southern La Paz. This area is home to some of Bolivia's rich and shameless. Large American style houses guarded by big bad hounds are juxtraposed with the neighbourhood park full of handymen touting for business. They run with desperate faces to any car that passes in the vein hope that they'll be employed for the day. Quite a sad sight, if only we could find plumbers etc...so easily back home! Theres plenty to
Moon Valley
Beam me up scotty.... this has got to work... see and do in La Paz. The city gets a big thumbs up from us but after 5 days there we had seen enough and were ready to rock n roll to Sucre, Bolivia's charming official capital....
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