choking on Pollution

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LaPaz is a huge city that covers this very large rock bowl surronded by high plains. The outskirts of the city cover this large plain as far as you can see. You go around a corner and see this city sitting at the botttom and all up the steep sides of the rock bowl. The houses and buildings look like they hanging percariously on the edges one on top of the other. Our bus dropped us off (aprox 40 of us) on this small narrow steep street ....and started unloading luggage. Very strange. You are playing chicken with cars trying to get your luggage out of the middle of this narrow steep and busy street and it is dark. Not a great way to start the >LaPaz introduction. We finally get all our baggage and flag a taxi which is not hard. As we are going into our hotel a few guys are coming out and say "the entrance looks great but the further in you get the more basic it becomes". Man were they right. Nice lobby but the rooms were very basic with very cold showers and cold rooms. We slept with our clothes on and jackets under the covers every night. This is saying something as Im from the north. Mom was sick still from in PUno and got a little sicker and I was sick the second day from altitude sickness. The city is at about 13000 ft above sea level. The second day we did get out and did some shopping and got some alpaca at very good prices so I was feeling not quite as negative. The last day in town we took a city tour and that helped to appreciate LaPaz a little more yet. Anyway to make a long story short...not much there except I will be back to do the Death Road by bike.......

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