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Published: April 7th 2015
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Nick: Can't....breathe....
That's right folks! We are now in La Paz, capital of Bolivia and located some 3500-ish metres above sea level in the 'altiplano' region of the Andes mountains. At this altitude, there is a good deal less oxygen in the atmosphere, and altitude sickness can be a problem for many visitors who aren't used to the conditions - especially those who have flown in and therefore not had the chance to acclimatise gradually (i.e. us). One of the first sights on arriving in the fairly rudimentary airport is an area set aside for 'medical emergencies', with a large sign offering oxygen therapy! But I exaggerate our own symptoms slightly. We've been here a few hours now and had a wander around the hilly streets, with no significant ill effects, other than a slightly light head and the occasional shortness of breath; that said, I certainly noticed something was up when, on arrival at our hostel, climbing a single flight of stairs and chatting to a member of staff I found myself subsequently gasping for air! I know I'm not the fittest bloke but I'm not that bad!
We arrived here late this afternoon, after a couple of
days of travelling up from Pucon in the middle-South of Chile, with an overnight stay at an airport hotel in Santiago. Our final day in Pucon was much of a muchness; after watching the rather disappointing football during the morning (being, as we were, a good four hours behind UK time) we headed out into the drizzle around midday to get our bus. The rest of the day was spent travelling; an uneventful bus ride and taxi to Temuco airport, a long wait in the departures lounge followed by a relatively short flight back up to Santiago. Knowing we had another flight the following morning, we'd chosen a hotel near the airport rather than going all the way into the city again.
Arriving at our hotel at around 22:00, things took a turn for the stressful when the receptionist checking us in asked me for my immigration documentation. So, to recap, we entered Chile via a land border crossing from Argentina somewhere in the Andes mountain range (a place called 'Libertadores' for the detail-fans) at which time we were both issued with a small, receipt-sized slip of paper which was our immigration documentation, to be duly presented when we
Sarah standing by the well-camouflaged door to our bathroom!
The walls of our hostel bedroom - and most of the walls about the place - were covered in these wonderful paintings. wanted to leave the country. Well, I think you probably know where this is going: Sarah duly dug out her document, whereas an increasingly frantic search through my wallet, passport, and pretty much everywhere else failed to turn up mine. I can only conclude that, looking as it did much like the six hundred and twelve other slips of paper I had recently cleared out of my wallet, I had erroneously thrown away my immigration documentation. This didn't present an immediate problem with regards to our hotel stay - the receptionist was quite happy to check us in using Sarah's documents - but had very worrying implications for trying to leave the country the following morning! A cursory Internet search turned up little in the way of useful advise, other than a handful of concerning anecdotes about long delays, missed flights, and other such unpleasantness. Fortunately for me, my dear wife the The Chief Sandwich Officer (First Class) also happened to be Senior Crisis Manager and a contact number for the International Police was swiftly sought out, I gave them a call and managed to get some reassurance that all could be sorted out the following morning before our flight.
We were able to rest easier after that, although by this time it was getting late and after a light dinner in the restaurant, and mindful of the busy following day, we went to bed.
It was an early start the next morning, as we wanted to give ourselves plenty of time to sort out the documentation issues. Indeed, we made sure we got to the airport a good couple of hours sooner than we otherwise would have, anticipating long queues and negotiation of hideous amounts of red tape. As it turned out, a five minute visit to the International Police office within the airport terminal was all it took to get a duplicate form - good grief! All that worry for nothing, but at least it was sorted and we could now confidently look forward to our next destination. In due course, we were on a plane to La Paz, a trip that took us a total of about five hours, including a brief stop in Iquique, Northern Chile. By mid-afternoon, the plane was circling over La Paz and coming into land.
With our bags collected and having made it through immigration (and my exit card VERY
safely tucked away for future use, lesson learned!), we were met by the bloke who was going to give us a lift to our hostel, which we had arranged previously. Driving away from the airport, it was immediately clear that we were somewhere entirely unlike anywhere we had been before: views of older Bolivian women dressed in bright woollen clothes and bowler hats, carrying huge cloth bundles of who-knows-what, and amazing vistas of the huuuuuge sprawling city, splayed out in a valley within the mountain range but crawling up into the peaks as well. The poverty (as compared to, say Chile) was clearly evident too, and many of the cars we passed, or which passed us, were fairly battered up. As we got closer to the central area, things started getting busier and we had a particularly interesting ten minutes when our taxi driver ended up being stopped by nothing less than a street parade coming the other way. Seriously, large numbers of men in formal suits but drinking cans of beer, and women in traditional dress and the obligatory bowler hats, all came dancing down the street, accompanied by a brass band, assorted kids and various others. Strangely, everyone seemed to be brandishing a toy metal truck - we weren't sure if it was a corporate-sponsored shindig or what, either way it was pretty obscure!
Despite the protestations of what appeared to be one of the parade organisers, our driver was intent on driving up the road on which the parade was taking place; following a rather amusing verbal slanging match between the two, our driver managed to drive the taxi against the flow of the parade and we were eventually out the other side, although not before he had reversed his taxi and clunked into the van behind (neither party acknowledged this!). It was mayhem, absolutely hilarious, and in its own bizarre way a wonderfully mad introduction to the country. After the comparatively clean, tidy and organised places we had recently been, it was a refreshing change of scene and made us both feel like we were back on an adventure once more.
After checking in to the hostel we went for the cursory wander about to get to know the place. Given its mountainous setting, La Paz is all steep hills, something that doesn't combine too well with the high altitude, so we sauntered around at a sedate pace. The part we saw reminded me in one respect of Hanoi, Vietnam; streets seemed to carry common themes in terms of the types of shops they housed, with one street full of, say, hairdressers, whilst the next street has nothing but hardware stores. Unusual, but I suppose there must be a good reason for it....Anyway, it was getting late in the day and we hadn't really eaten any lunch so both of us were getting hungry. There didn't appear to be a huge number of restaurants about and we had no food to eat at the hostel. In the end we settled for a chicken-and-chips restaurant, of which there seemed to be several. Not the healthiest, perhaps, but it was available and with both of our dinners plus a couple of soft drinks coming to a grad total of 50 Bolivianos (about five quid), it wasn't going to break the bank either.
We are back on the hostel now, having a read and generally relaxing. Tomorrow we'll get out and about some more and hopefully try to arrange our trip out to see the world famous salt flats at nearby Uyuni - everyone who we have spoken to so far who has been to Bolivia has done this, and without fail they have waxed lyrical about it and so we are keen to try and get there ourselves. After a couple of consecutive days of travelling, I'm looking forward to getting a good nights sleep in, but even more so to getting back out tomorrow to explore some more of this already fascinating and intriguing city!
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