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Published: September 24th 2007
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Following our trip into the Amazon we spent another five days and six nights in La Paz. This was longer than expected or wished for but I had to wait a few days to pick up some mail from the post office. As it turned out there are a number of ways to kill time.
We stayed in a busy maze of a hostel called El Solario. El Solario was a cool place filled with travellers from all over the world and its central location couldn´t be beaten.
On the monday Eddie and I set off for the much advertised ruins of Tiwananku, to the west of La Paz. Although there are no end of tour agencies offering organised trips to Tiwanaku we decided to go it alone. This turned out to be much cheaper and more interesting.
We got a micro from the ´Cementary District´of town. These minibuses leave every half hour or so and stop as many times along the way to pick up as many passengers as physically possible. It was a fun experience to travel the true Bolivian way. However when we arrived I was very happy to stretch my legs.
Tiwanaku is
probably Bolivia´s number one archeological site and they´ve defenatley gone to a lot of effort with the site office and visitors centre. The whole complex sits on a flat expanse of rather barren plain (this is the Altiplano after all) very close to the isolated town of Tiwanaku. On the day we were there it was very grey, overcast and windy.
Entrance cost us 80 bolivianos and we were shown into the museum first of all where they display various statues and artifacts that have been removed from the actual site. This was fairly interesting, especially the enormous statue of Pachamama (Mother Earth) which we were told (after the event) that we were not allowed to photograph.
We both found the main ruins themselves a little dissapointing. The site is rather under excivated and although the central temple complex is well preserved it´s really no more than half an hour of interest. Still it is as definatley worth a gander if you have a few days spare.
That evening we decided to visit a couple of bars we´d read about in the guide book. In particualr a place called ´Diesel´. This bar was on La Paz´s main
street for nightlife Octobre 20 in the middle class suburb of Sopocachi. This is very unusual bar complete with new age jazz music, a jet engine coming throw the wall and every avalible space covered in metallic relics like cogs, gears and industrial pipeworks. Really though, it was a little overpriced and kind of up its own... well you know.
The nexy day two of our English tarveling friends from the week before were passing through La Paz on their way home and wanted to go out for one last big night. Not one to turn down an opportunity to part we celebrated Phil and Tim´s last night in Bolivia in style (I think). Mongos on a tuesday night is rammed and a good laugh, Vivian´s is not everyone´s cup of tea though.
A day of recovery followed during which we visited the Museum of Coca I bought myself a Changaro. This is a small guitar like instrument that can be heard in all Andean folk music but more importantly at the end of Amores Perros and 21 Grams. I annoyed Eddie all evening trying to tune the thing.
On what was to be our last full
day in La Paz we went on yet another day trip to ´Valle de Luna´(one of many in S. America) and a dieing glacier called Chacalatya. The Valle de Luna was fairly poor but the real purpose of the trip is to be driven out towards the Cordillea Real and some pretty spectacular snowcovered mountains. The bus dropped us off at a now obsolete ski centre from where we climed to 5300 meters in the cold and icey snow. The views were breathtaking and the snow a lot of fun, espceically as we hadn´t expected to encounter it on this trip.
That evening we had dinner with two German girls from the day trip after which they somehow managed to pursued me to bring my Changaro down to the Plaza San Fransico. After a few minutes of plucking alone a real Charango player and a Chilean with a guitar and an arty hat showed up and joined in. A little later we had fire jugglers, and various other street entertainers to play to as well as a large crowd of locals and tourists. This way the best possible way to say goodbye to La Paz. We´d met some real latin boheimians and had got suck right in.
The next day I collected my post and we booked a night bus south to the city of Sucre. There are worse places in the world to be tied to for a few days.
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anonymous
non-member comment
Pachumama- not a patch on Kabbahippo!