Discovering La Paz

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They say good things come to those who wait. Well this was true of our journey to La Paz: The 12 hr journey took us almost 24, starting with a 4 hour halt as there were blockades in the road due to vilage protests. We breathed a huge sigh of relief as the engine started up again, partly because we were on our way and partly because it brought some heat with it...but our next problem wasnt far away....soon enough the driver managed to run the front wheel into a ditch and we were well and truly stuck. After waiting in hope that the driver could work wonders with his spade, we gave up and hitched the rest of the way, luckily given a ride most of the way by a friendly trucker. Two micro rides later and we were in La Paz!

La Paz is a huge and sprawling city, the highest capital in the world. with houses built up on the hillsides surrounding it, literally between the mountains. It isn´t a particularly pretty city, but it´s lively and full of things to see and do; restaurants, bars, museums. Whilst we were there we visited the Coca museum, which gave a lot of information about the little green leaf that you see all over Bolivia. In every market there will be a woman with a sack of Coca leaves, and people are always chewing them or drinking coca tea. Ofcourse, the issue is complicated by the huge cocaine idustry, leading to governments (although not so much Bolivia´s own government) wanting the eradication of coca plant growing; but I can´t see that happening any time soon.

Another highlight of La Paz (and one which Stu habeen looking forward to) was a visit to the wrestling in El Alto, a city that sits on the hill pretty much next door to La Paz. It was certainly enterntaining, set in an old sports hall with a wrestling ring in the middle and a slightly ghetto PA system. Wrestlers descended the makeshift red carpet steps into the ring, at first the usual masked men in colourul costumes, but later the ´Cholitas´who are basically women in traditional Bolivian dress wrestling eachother. It was full of pantomine drama, shouting and orange segments being flung from the angry audience and the finale even included a plastic crate and a small child being used as a shield.

Our hostel was near the San Pedro Plaza, central in La Paz and also neighbour to the famous San Pedro Prison. The prison door opens onto the street opposite a plaza and on a daily basis has ques of people waiting to visit, or take inbags of food. Children sit outside the prison selling masks, (there is a reported meningitis outbreak and TB is also rife) and as you walk by you can see the crowds of men in the yard through the bars. In recent years the prison has been one of the city´s ´tourist attractions´with tours taking place, ofcourse it´s all illegal, but the prison is so corrupt that families live in there, prisoners buy their cells and the place is even rumoured to have a restuarant selling meals.

A short walk took us to the pretty San Francisc church and the nearby street market which continued block after block, selling everything you could need! It also lead onto the ´witches´market,which although a great attraction for travellers, is for the many Bolivians who practice Aymara medicine. The most intriguing items byfar were the drie llama foetus´s which hung above every stall! These are used, along with other items, in packages that are buried or burnt as offerings to the gods.

As well as enjoying city life in La Paz, we took a bus a couple of hours into the countryside to visit the pre-Inca ruins of Tiwanaku. This place was once the centre of many great ceremonies and the ´Puerta del sol´still remains; a stone door in which at certain times the sun aligns perfectly. Some of the intricate stone carvings still remain too and they seem to indicate that there were a few great parties there, given that every stone man has a drink in one hand and a pipe in the other.

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