4th November

To me, being around Lago Titicaca almost feels like we’re still in Peru despite some of the differences. Yesterday though, we headed into Bolivia proper, and its capital city by default; La Paz. I’ve read so much about this city, and of all the cities we’re to have visited during this trip, this for me is the one I’m most excited about.

La Paz is a special city, a city of “highests”. At around 3,700 metres, it is the highest capital city in the world. It has the world’s highest commercial airport where you land at around 13,000 feet. It also has the highest golf course in the world, where your tee off can go for miles in the rarefied atmosphere. And the highest ski slope in the world too, if you come at the right time of year. So we’re in the clouds again, but then most places we’ve been to in the last two or three weeks have been hardly any lower, and some a fair bit higher.

Settled within a canyon, La Paz has some of the most surreal scenery that you can imagine, right on its periphery. A lunar landscape in places, snow-capped mountains in others, you’d be hard pressed to find a more interesting city anywhere else in the world. In the centre, it has the modern and the traditional both at once. New 50” plasma TV? No problem. Dried llama foetus to bless your new house? No problem. This is a vibrant, cosmopolitan city with a huge variety of cultures. The very rich and the very poor, right on each other’s doorsteps.

Arriving at La Paz allows you to feel what this city is all about, rather than just reading the facts. Having been here a couple of days, I can honestly say that La Paz is bold, and it is beautiful. Beautiful in its ugliness. Beautiful in its griminess. Beautiful in its grittiness. It’s a big, largely unattractive South American city, and I love it. All human life can be found here.

We’re back to the mental traffic rules that we last saw in Lima. Back to the cancer-inducing atmosphere with a ridiculous number of cars on the road, all with MOTs dated nineteen eighty something no doubt. Back to the overcrowding. Back to the tiny streets lined with stalls all selling the same thing. Back to the eclectic music emanating from every shop. Back to the smell.

On paper, it has everything that I hate and would want to avoid. But here, and indeed in Quito, there is just something about it that charms you. You can imagine yourself living and working here and getting to know the people. Getting to know the rhythm of the city. Getting to hear its beating heart. Probably a romantic notion, but maybe one day I will get to put that to the test, assuming I don’t die of cancer first, the air really is bad here.

It’s a bustling city, both during the day and well into the evenings. And even though no-one moves very fast up at this altitude, everyone seems to be in a hurry. But you have to be very switched on to walk around La Paz too. You have no idea what the traffic rules are, if indeed there are any and I thoroughly suspect that there are none, and cars can literally materialise out of nowhere to take your knees out. You have to do a super quick 360 degree scan each and every time you attempt to cross a road, and then get across in double quick time. You take your life into your own hands in this city.

So why do I like it so much? I just can’t explain, other than to say it’s so very different from home, so very novel. All that I can say is that to appreciate it, you have to be here, to experience it firsthand, because no amount of words will allow you to feel what this city exudes. We’ve barely been here more than a day, yet we need to leave in the morning. But we’ll be back in a few days, to soak it up some more, before we leave to enter the interior of Bolivia proper and complete the last leg of our journey.

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Part of trip: South America 2009 - Ecuador, Peru & Bolivia

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