La Paz

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At 3600 metres, La Paz is the highest city in the world. The city is kind of a bowl shape; located in a valley and surrunded by mountains. As the city has spread it has just climbed up the sides of the mountains. There are thousands of tiny houses clinging to the side of the mountain in what you would think would normally be deemed an impossible - or unwise - engineering feat. The mountains are so steep and seem to rise up so high - no matter where you are in the city there is always a mountain jutting out in front of you.

The city is a maze of narrow - and steep - cobblestone streets which are great for exploring, but a killer at the same time! So much of traditional indigenous life is still present in the city. The women bring their fresh produce to sell and early in the morning, line the sides of the narrow streets - they just basically dump their stuff on a plastic sheet and sit on the ground and sell. There a hundreds of them, packed shoulder to shoulder, all selling pretty much the same thing, you wonder how they actually make a living. A huge number of the women still wear their traditional clothing - full skirts made of elaborate fabrics, sandles, bowler hats, shawls, and colourful woven fabric which seems to have multiple purposes, for decoration or for more practical use - many lug around huge loads on their backs just by strategically positioning this piece of material. They also carry their babies the same way - and somehow not many seem to fall out. The women are like pack-horses, so strong and sturdy and as wide as they are tall - Nath's quite disappointed!

Visited the Witches Market which is a maze of stalls selling the most bizarre and creepy stuff - dried animals, snakeskins, charms, potions, herbs and dried llama fetuses which are buried under homes when they are built to bring security and prosperity. They also do coca leaf readings for Bolivians but we couldn´t find anyone who would do us gringos - nor would most of them let us take their photo, which is unusual for South America as they're usually more than happy to pose in exchange for a few coins. We did buy a couple of clay charms though which will apparently protect our house.

We also visited the Coca Museum which is a shrine to the sacred coca leaf and the huge role it plays in Bolivian life.

Overall, La Paz has been a fascinating mix of things - dirty, smelly but colourful and traditional at the same time.

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Photos

The famous La Paz prison
An aussie by the name of Rusty Young wrote a great book about this jail. We stayed 300m from the main entrance, and were threatned with jail after taking the photo!

The high tech La Paz public transport system
Noisy, foul and crowded