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Published: January 6th 2011
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HAPPY NEW YEAR!!
La Paz is the highest capital city in the world at 3660 metres above sea level. This is the highest that we have been so far. The city is set in a canyon and is overlooked by the towering triple-peaked Illimani, which is always snow-covered and is said to be as tall as Everest base camp. We had heard that the altitude would leave us breathless, but didnt realise how much! Everything is a lot harder, even walking up the inclining streets leaves you panting! Our room in the hostel was on the top floor which meant we regularly had to walk up 8 flights of stairs, we almost died! After being here for a week we have acclimatised a bit so things are easier. We have also been drinking coca tea which is said to help quite a bit. On the plus side though, someone told us that at high altitude you burn three times as many calories!!
After all the palava getting here before New Year´s Eve, we finally made it and had a brilliant night! Drew, James and I went out for pizza and had two of the most enormous pizzas I have
ever seen! After our meal we went back to our hostel (Cruz de los Andes) to have a few drinks and get ready. At about 10.30 we headed over to Loki hostel (one of La Paz´s party hostels where our friends Louise and Maggie were staying) to celebrate the New Year. After midnight we headed to another party hostel around the corner, bumping into Sarah and Dave, the couple that we meet EVERYWHERE we go. After we went on to a club for some more dancing. Whilst we were there a guy was kicked out and then chased down the street by a bouncer with a taser! We took this as our cue to leave and rolled in to bed at 4.30am. It was one of the best New Years I have had and between us we spent about 15 quid!
New Year´s Day consisted of two things, sleeping and eating! We had a private room in our hostel that had cable TV, so we made the most of it!
The next day we decided we had not really seen any of La Paz. Drew, James and I had some lunch and headed over to the Loki hostel
to meet the Irish girls. We then had a wander over to the infamous San Pedro Prison. The prison was made famous by the book ´Marching Powder´. There are no guards inside the prison, only at the entrance therefore the prisoners govern themselves. Those with money are able to buy themselves cells with all the amenities, bribe the guards for visits outside and pay for their families to live with them inside the prison. There are also supposedly shops, a cinema and a cocaine laboratory within the prison. Tourists can also enter the prison for a guided tour by one of the inmates (although this is illegal, we have met many travellers who have done it, however recently there have been reports that travellers have been deported for doing so). Whilst standing outside we were approached by one of the convicts, a man from NYC who had been in the prison and was currently on day release. He explained to us the procedure to get in to the prison and how much it would cost, however we had already decided that the risks were too high and that we were not going to do the tour so we decined.
On the 3rd we headed over to the witches market near our hostel. The stalls are covered in stone effigies, various plants and the most bizarre - dried llama foetuses!! These range in size from quite small to fully developed! At first they were pretty gross but now we have kinda gotten used to them. It is said that if you bury one under the doorway of your new house it warns off evil spirits. We also had a look at the variety of alpaca goods on offer and I embraced the lot settling on a jumper, some socks and two headbands whilst James got himself some socks! I may go back for more as we got this lot for about a tenner!
In the evening, 10 of us headed over to a steak restaurant (the guys we met at the border turned up at the same hostel). The meal was excellent and James and I shared the mixed grill sword which was enourmous!! When we got the bill it came to 857 Bolivianos for 10 of us, including drinks!! That´s 85 quid! Bargain! The food is so cheap here that none of the hostels have a kitchen area
for guests so we eat out twice a day and the food has surprisingly been some of the best we have had in South America so far! After our meal we headed out to another one of La Paz´s nightclubs.
After 5 nights in our lovely hostel/hotel, we decided to move over to the Loki hostel to meet some more people and save some money. Since being here 2 other guys we met in Salta have turned up so its nice to see some familiar faces. We are currently looking into some pampas tours (rainforest) and are heading down on the overnight bus to Uyuni on Friday to do our 3 day Salt Flat tour which we are really looking forward to. Today James and the rest of the group are cycling the death road - a 60km descent that begins in snowy mountains and ends in the amazon basin. It´s the World´s most dangerous road as at some points it is only 3m wide with a 600m vertical drop and it´s a dirt track! So he should have some good tales to tell! I chickened out as it´s not uncommon for me to fall off a bike and
I would probably have a heart attack being so close to the edge!
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Matt Toner
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Beginning of the Witches Picture
Jimmy B - In that picture " Beginning of the Witches Market" You kinda look like the guy from Idiot Abroad