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Published: April 6th 2007
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Central City
View from the Plaza San Francisco. Check out all those houses on the hillside beyond. Ok, it's time for an update on our time here in La Paz and the first thing to tell you is that we're having a blast. To be honest we haven't done anything particularly adventurous yet but then it's just been good to be somewhere we can relax and recharge our batteries after all the fun and games in Peru.
La Paz is a bustling place and although it's nowhere near as modern and flashy as most other capital cities we've visited, it seems to function pretty well. Well, that is as long as you don't include the traffic! Crossing the road is a bit of a nightmare here as the roads are always clogged with buses, taxis and collectivos fighting to creep into every available inch of road space. Drivers frequently ignore traffic lights, pedestrian crossings are nothing more than pretty stripes painted on the tarmac and the efforts of the traffic police actually seem to make things worse. Still, if you can make it across the road, there's a wonderful world of market stalls, chicken-only restaurants and chaos waiting for you!
Our guest house is not far from the Plaza San Francisco and this seems to
Steep Streets
La Paz: The South American San Francisco? be where all the action is at. The market is absolutely enormous and you can buy almost anything from the hundreds upon hundreds of hapharzardly placed stalls. In particular abundance are toiletries, stationary, Easter eggs and pirate DVDs, CDs, PS2 and PC software. There's also a whole host of eateries catering to anyone wanting hot dogs, burgers, popcorn, boiled choclo (corn on the cob) and some kind of meat chunks with potato on a skewer, like a mini-Sunday roast on a stick. That's not to mention the snack sellers that appear to take up almost a quarter of the entire market. The place is buzzing with locals going about their daily business and it's amusing to see indigenous ladies in their many skirts, shawls and bowler hats hawking the likes of Wrestlemania and Resident Evil on DVD.
The best thing about the market of course is how unbelivably cheap everything is. You can pick up a 3-in-1 movie compilation on DVD for as little as 5 Bs (about 35 pence) and many of the stalls have DVD players hooked up so you can check the quality of what you're buying! It's insane!! We've also spotted plenty of fake clothing
Back Street Boy
Glynn checks out another of La Paz´s steep streets. and accessories and couldn't resist picking up a Batman and Thundercats t-shirt for just over £1 each.
Eating out here is also really great value for money. On our first night, we headed to the main tourist area and popped into an expensive-looking restaurant for dinner and dined on some great food for under £6. Since then, we've tracked down a fantastic veggie restaurant called Confiteria Manantial at the base of the Hotel Gloria that serves breakfast for 7.5Bs and lunch for 17Bs. It's essentially a buffet style kind of place where you pick up one of everything as you walk along the food counters. For breakfast you get a bowl of cereal or fresh fruit, yoghurt, toast with butter and jam, a couple of savoury pasties, scrambled egg (strangely this was with ham - not so veggie friendly), pancakes with maple syrup, a glass of fruit juice and a mug of tea or coffee.
Lunch was even more incredible. Picture this: a plate of up to 4 different salads with choice of dressings, 4 mini wholemeal breads, a bowl of soup or stew, a glass of fruit juice, unlimited herbal tea and a vanilla pudding with lemon
Big Breakfast
we got all this for just a pound. No wonder Glynn´s looking surprised! biscuit for dessert. If that wasn't enough for you, you get given a voucher for the main course which you go and get when you've finished the first lot of food. The main course is typically something like a soya steak with vegetable rice and chips. All that for about £1.10? It's brilliant and tastes good too!
Bolivia is a typically devout Catholic South American country and with today being Good Friday, things were a lot quieter around town. With many businesses being closed for the day, we didn't venture out too far and were back at the hostel in good time to watch a fascinatingly morose procession march through the city centre. For 2 hours, a steady stream of mourners shuffled along the main thoroughfare carrying effigies of Jesus in various stages leading up to his ultimate death on the cross. The groups carrying the depictions of Christ were dressed in long gowns with pointed hoods covering their whole heads, reminiscent of the infamous KKK in America although the costumes here have no sinister connections.
Alongside the statues came ranks of soldiers in old-fashioned bright red and beige uniforms that reminded us of traditional wooden toy soldiers
Art Master
Here´s the very friendly and helpful Ruben from our hostel showing Jish some of his excellent artwork. with their little knapsacks on their backs. The rest of the Bolvian military followed behind carrying everything from bayonets to machine guns. Brass bands accompanied the march playing suitably somber music more in keeping with a New Orleans funeral than any Easter tradition we've experienced in the UK or Germany. It was odd but fitting, I suppose. We were told off at one point by some overblown military official for taking photos from the hostel balcony so I ended up sneaking snaps from the third floor window where the view was nowhere near as good. Strange that they never batted an eyelid at the tourists taking photos right next to the procession. Ah well....
All in all then, it's safe to say that we're having a comfortable time of it in Bolivia so far. Maybe tomorrow we'll actually get round to doing something exciting!
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Linda
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Toy Soldiers
Yes - They do!