Strange goings on in La Paz....

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After another quite uneventful bus ride (the kind we like!) to La Paz we arrived in the highest city in the world at about 3pm. The only good thing about this bus ride was the journey across Titca where you have to leave the bus and go across by boat while your bus gets transported by another ferry boat after you!

We were't entirely sure what to expect of La Paz so had nothing huge planned except to see what the city had to offer us and stock up on some essentials from the markets..

Our first few days were spent taking in the sights around our hostel which was convenientially located next to the witches market. This market is excellent for those into spiritual offerings and sells everything you could need for an Inca ceremony.. dried frogs, caymen and even an assortment of sized llama foetsus for those who have any desire to get one. Sophie thought this would make an excellent souvenir on the mantlepiece but Dale thought not so she wasn't allowed one! Not to mention the fact that things were being posted home and we both weren't sure how our parents would react when they opened the package!

Dale had seen on Michael Palin's travels that you could visit the San Pedro prison in the city. This prison is much like a small village where the prisoners run themselves and are only kept in by the guards. You can actually just go and visit the prison for a tour so we decided that this would be an experience not to be missed. We eventually found the 'gringo' entrance, you have to go in this way because the South American prisoners hate the gringos so any that are kept there are completely separate from the 'normal' ones. As soon as we got to the gate we were greeted by many prisoners all keen to know where we were from etc. After being stamped up we were let in and let up to a cell which is where the tour starts. After being led into another room the lady who was showing us round casually asked for 500 Bolivianos which is the entrance fee for the tour. We don't really carry much cash on us so we didn't have that amount and made our excuses to visit the cash machine to get our fee. Outside however we debated whether it was really worth £30 to go and visit some prisoners and we decided that we'd really been in the prison gates and kind of had an experience so decided against going back.. this may seem harsh but please remember that £30 is 2 days spending for us so quite a lot of money!

We spent that afternoon in the local craft market they have on the main street each Sunday and Dale even managed to get his most wanted pan pipes much to Sophie's delight! The rest of the afternoon was spent with Sophie covering her ears as he tried to get the hang of this local music! Alongside the beautiful music making we did also visit the Presidential Palace to see the bullet holes in the side of the building we had heard about, the square in front of this is also home to a statue where a former president was hung in front of all the citizens.. nice!

Another thing we'd heard about on the black backpacker rumour mill was that there was midget and old lady fighting each Sunday. As gruesome as it sounds this was something we had to see! There was a poster for it in our hostel so we booked ourself on a tour to go that evening for some blood and guts bare knuckle fighting!...... What we and the rest of the tour group didn´t realise was that the reality was something completely different....

Picture in your mind WWF wrestling with the worst acting you have ever seen with a variety of South American traditionally dressed ladies and men in elaborate outfits and you will be halfway there! Neither of us particularly like WWF wrestling and would go so far as to say we really hate it so tried to hide our disappointment when we realised what it was! The evening was quite funny though with the actors spilling into the crowd every so often and at the end of the night we did feel that we will certainly never experience anything like it in our lives again so were pleased we went!

Our other main task while in the city was to get our visa extended. As UK citizens we are entitled to 90 days in Bolivia but for some reason they only give you 30 when entering by the borders, as we had planned to spend 5 weeks here we thought it best to get this sorted while in the capital city to avoid any problems later on. This was remarkably easy even with our basic Spanish skills and just required a couple of photocopies of our passport and it was done! We are always so pleased when things run to plan and we don't have to get out the phrase book to try to speak to a couple of immigration men with huge pump action shot guns resting in their hands!

So after a few days in Laz Paz we had our Worlds Most Dangerous Road trip booked and were really looking forward that that and the jungle (and hot weather!) that lay ahead of us.....

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