La Paz

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We awake early (ish) and meet the girls for one final meal together, its a shame to leave them after 3 days of doing most things together, best people ive met so far by a Swedish mile (10km). They have very kindly made us wrist bands, Matts features a nut which still hasnt been explained, which adds to the emotional farewell as they head to Peru and we continue to La Paz.

Due to classic overbooking our bags are thrown on top of the bus and i have to ride shotgun with the driver. Its and equally scary and beautiful journey witrh the mountains becom,ing closer as we travel towards La Paz. Some town we pass throuigh are the poorest ive seen so far, skelentons of buildings and dirt tracks are all that can bee seen apart from dogs and childrens and the odd stand selling coke and chocolate, truely starnge places. The driver also texts on his phone as we navigate some classic cliff side drops, and narrowly avaoid a dog, a a lady and an on coming bus in the wrong lane.

Half way, we have to get off the bus and board a tiny boat to cross the lake, our bus (Diana Tours) take another floating platform across. For that ten minutes i fully expected to see the bus glide gracefully off the back of the barge floating a few metres behind us. It didnt.

As we cirlce into La Paz through some very poor neighbourhoods its become apparent that this huge sprawling city which grips the mountains sides of the valley is a world away from the previous towns. As we get off the bus we head to a recommend hostel, which turns out to be an ex-hospital, very weird and the toilets remind me of something out of a horror film/computer game. Turns out to be ok and relatively cheap, after hunting out the local fake english pub we have a great meal then retire to our ward.

The next few days are spent wandering the many markets and generally enjoying the city life, La Paz is a very busy place all day and night the traffic never stops and streets are full of vendours selling everything from watches to fake DVDs (Coldplay Live at Glastobury 2005 for 60p, Tom couldnt resist).

Matt buys a Churango which is basically a Ukulele with an extra string, its an extremely well made and solid instrument and even though the guides books with it are rubbish it is fun. I eventually buckle to pressure, from myself, and part with a tidy amount for a lovely steel string guitar (ill put some pics up soon Shaun), after a severe re-tuning and clean i think i love it.

The evenings are spent back at the hostel playing instruments and planning the next few weeks of the trip before our flight to Manaus onm the 30th.

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