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Published: January 18th 2010
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The Bolivian adventure continued in the country’s official capitol: La Paz. We boarded another bus from Copacabana to La Paz, which involved getting out of the bus, en route, and onto a small boat to cross Lake Titicaca. It was quite funny to see the bus floating across the lake on a shanty looking barge. The entire trip to La Paz took about 4 hours. Just as we made our final descent into the city (Copa is at 3800m and La Paz is 3660m), we got some astounding views of the city from above. A large part of La Paz is in a valley, but the city is also built right up into the steep hills. It is amazing to imagine residents trudging up the incredibly steep hills to get to their homes every day. It makes for a great view though. Megan and I were not quite sure what to expect of La Paz as we had heard mixed reviews from other travelers. A lot of other people (and Lonely Planet) said that La Paz was not safe, and had heard stories from friends of friends who were robbed in taxis and on the street etc. We did get some
good advice from the owner of the hostel we planned to stay at, to only take ‘radio’ taxis (this is clearly marked on the taxi), with phone numbers displayed on the body and top of the car. This proved to be good advice and we had no problems whatsoever. Arranging the price of the taxi ride is important before setting out on the journey, as is in all parts of South America!
From the bus station, we took a taxi to our hostel, Loki Backpackers, which is a rather infamous hostel with a few locations in Bolivia and Peru. It has a reputation as a party hostel, and it delivers on that claim. We didn’t get a lot of sleep in our dorm room full of boys that snored and made lots of noise when coming in late at night!! We did manage to befriend a group of guys in the room that were from the UK, who were quite nice when they were not waking us up in the middle of the night. Aside from the noise, Loki is a full service hostel with everything we needed - good location, hot showers, a bar that also serves food, tour
desk, English speaking staff and a social vibe.
Highlights of La Paz for us included lots of great restaurants - we ate everywhere from an English pub to a Swiss fondue place, a good market, called the Witches market, with the usual Alpaca sweaters and Andean weaved goods for cheap, cheap, cheap! We also did a walking tour on our own, as suggested by Lonely Planet, which gave us a good feel for the city. Some of the museums were definitely worth seeing, the Coca museum gives great insight into the traditional custom of chewing Coca leaves (the leaves which are harvested and used to produce Cocaine). For centuries, it has been local custom to chew Coca leaves in Andean cultures. However, in modern times, there has been controversy over the illegal growing of coca in the Bolivian highlands for production and export of cocaine. It was interesting to learn about this from a Bolivian perspective. We also visited a museum in Bolivia’s oldest and most beautiful church, which was a nice experience.
On our second day in Bolivia, we pondered whether to book a trip to bike down “The World’s Most Dangerous Highway”, or to go horseback riding, which
was recommended to us by the Aussie girls we met on Isla del Sol. We thought about the biking, as it would have been a really unique experience; however, we had heard that it is not that safe in the rainy season, as the road is actually really dangerous when wet. It was also quite pricey - 600 Bolivianos, which is about $90 US dollars. We decided to go with the horseback riding after considering those 2 factors. We chatted with the UK guys, who had done the bike ride the day before, and one of them flipped his bike twice and went over the handlebars. Miraculously, he made it out with only a few bruises. The road is only a few meters wide, and has a deathly cliff on one side, so one slip in the wrong direction and you are pretty much toast. That being said, lots of people bike down with no problems (typically not males between the ages of 18-35) and really enjoy the experience, I’m sure.
We headed out for our horseback riding adventure on a beautiful, sunny afternoon. Our guide was really funny - he was a Spanish, Japanese, Cuban-born guy living in Bolivia. We rode the horses high up above the city where we enjoyed fantastic landscape - large cliffs and rocks with green valleys, all with the city below. The area we rode to was called the Devil’s Tooth, in reference to one very prominent rock formation. We stopped for lunch at a great spot overlooking the city, and our guide gave us some Spanish lessons. He told us what Latino men might say to women to pick them up - tell them they are tasty like chicken (?) Haven’t heard that one yet….
After spending a few days in La Paz, our impression was definitely not what we had heard. La Paz didn’t feel any more dangerous than any other city we had encountered thus far. Alertness and common sense are definitely needed, but that can be said for any travel destination. Instead, we found La Paz to be a pretty, interesting, culturally rich city with lots of things to do and good places to eat. However, the city is absolutely dead on Sundays! The streets are empty and most shops are closed. We are finding as we continue our travels that this is the case more often than not in many South American cities on Sundays. After three days in La Paz, we headed out on a night bus to our next Bolivian destination, Sucre.
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