Advertisement
La Paz is awesome. It is huge and dirty and I can’t really explain exactly what I like about it. I think I just enjoy how weird it is. Where else can you buy llama foetuses at the witches market and cocaine for 7 quid a gram? Seriously, I saw people order it at the bar and have it served racked up on a CD case. Not that I want either llama foetuses or coke, but it’s good to know should the need ever arise. If you are going to Bolivia, learn a little bit about the US ‘war on drugs’ and go to the cocoa museum in La Paz to see how the western world’s desire for cocaine is hurting South American cocoa farmers and criminalising harmless traditional uses of the cocoa leaf. It is very sad and it will make you think twice before availing yourself of the cheap coke.
La Paz is also amazing for shopping, if everything you want to buy is either llama based or completely insane. I bought cocoa leaf earrings, a bizarre articulated metal fish, necklaces made of seeds from the amazon, boxes made from cactus wood, baked clay good luck charms, silver
rings. Kit bought a revolting giant spider in a glass case. And brand new Addidas trainers for about 20 quid.
We stayed at one of the infamous Loki ‘party hostels’, which I HATE, but agreed to as a consession to Kit because this is his first backpacking experience, and yes they are kind of fun. Sitting at the bar there, I looked around and could not help but wonder, what kind of girl packs high heels and hair straighteners while backpacking around Bolivia? Maybe it’s just jealousy but really, that’s not what it’s all about, it is? I mean, I’d grown a monobrow by this point. Despite the fairly high percentage of wankers it was a good place to meet people. We had a really fun night out with a group of Irish people who were our new best friends for about 12 hours. We then lost their email addresses, as always happens. I wonder if I will manage to keep in contact with ANYONE I’ve met out here. I’m thinking probably no. It’s not intentional, it just never happens, does it? You forget names and the little bits of paper with people’s emails written on in eyeliner go
missing and then that’s that. Oh well, its fun while it lasts.
I don’t remember what else we did in La Paz. I think, if I’m perfectly honest, it was almost entirely shopping and drinking. Oh no, I also had the worst haircut of my life. My fringe was growing horizontally outwards for many weeks afterwards. You know, like when boys used to gell their fringe out to a peak in year 8. Bad times. Kit had his dyed black, which he thought would make him look more local. I didn’t like it, but given the state of me I was in no position to be judging anyone’s hair, so there you go.
After a couple of days in La Paz we went straight to Sorata, because I wanted to do this mountain biking trip I’d found on the internet months ago. This is what I like to do instead of work whn I’m back home. Research trips for my summers.
After a standard many hour journey in a minibus containing 27 people and a puppy in a cardboard box, we arrived.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.156s; Tpl: 0.01s; cc: 18; qc: 75; dbt: 0.0815s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb