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Published: January 14th 2009
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San Franciso Market
Ah I miss this place ... until the protestors decide to let buses pass that is!
And so back to La Paz. This is probably going to be a short entry, as what I did after Huayna Potosi more or less mirrors what happened beforehand. That's right, more wandering the streets, taking advantage of the delicious street food and 5 boliviano smoothies. It's a tough life. As I mentioned, Rob, Sam and Aussie Beth from Salkantay had arrived, and shortly we also bumped into Chris from the trek too.
So one night, we all went out to get something to eat, and were very happy when we happened upon a restaurant, which seemed to double as a local drinking hole. When we arrived, there were people passed out on tables, which should give you an idea of the sort of place I'm talking about. Nonetheless, the food was cheap, so we ordered, and when it arrived it was delicious. The locals were obviously impressed we were there, so started putting English language tunes on the jukebox and waving to us. We were having fun, so decided to stay and join them for a couple of beers after our meal. It was an interesting experience
Cholita Wrestling
Off the top rope! trying to communicate, their drunken Spanish conflicting with our bad Spanish, but we got by. Unfortunately, as the night drew to a close Beth realised her camera was missing, and her drink had possibly been spiked, as she started to feel very ill. A sad end to what had been a really fun evening.
Another evening was spent at the Cholita Wrestling. We were unaware of what to expect from it, thinking perhaps it was going to be proper scrapping. Instead, what we got was a Bolivian imitation of WWE, with superstars such as Mr Atlas, Baron Rojo and of course who can forget the household name that is Mr Mathematico. The "draw" of the event is that some of the competitors are the Bolivian cholitas, that spend most of their days being grumpy and getting in your way on the streets. Somehow, despite this, they managed to be crowd favourites, so thus always won. Bolivians don't believe in contriving a result where the bad guy wins. Still, it was all a bit of fun, and was better than watching grass grow.
And that was suppposed to be that for La Paz. The ticket to Sucre was bought,
so all that was left was to wait the day out until it left that evening. However, at about 1pm, a sign went up in the hostel saying all buses south were cancelled because of violent protests on the roads. Smashing, especially considering I had already checked out and packed my bag. Despite this, the bus company were very reluctant to change the date of travel, although I'm very glad I managed to talk them round, as that night quite a few people got injured as some companies tried to send their buses through. The igonomy of having to go back and check back into the hostel was definitely worth avoiding that. Meanwhile, we were holed up in another random bar somewhere where they had the real WWE on the telly. Much safer.
The next day, the protests had all been sorted out, so a day later than planned myself and English Beth jumped on the bus to Sucre. Hoorah!
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