La Paz - it's ugly, but you can never leave


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South America » Bolivia » La Paz Department » La Paz
June 1st 2009
Published: June 1st 2009
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Whenever we spoke to backpackers about La Paz they all said the same - that it was ‘a place you get stuck in but really need to leave’. When we first arrived I definitely didn’t think that would be the case but none the less we ended up there for over a week!! It just seems to suck all life out of you - either you end up sick or you party way too much - ours was the first unfortunately!! So having picked up a bad tum in Copacabana I woke up on the first morning in La Paz feeling awful!! I was convinced it was altitude sickness seeing as I couldn’t walk up the stairs without bending over, hands on knees as if I’d run 100 metres flat out!! Trying to battle through I walked about the city for the next two days visiting the markets and planning my spending spree for when I felt better trying not to let something as stupid ‘being high up’ ruin things!! When I didn’t feel better after 3 days I started to fear the altitude would mean we’d have to leave La Paz and also not be able to do the Salt Flats which are one of the ‘must do’ things for South America (the flat are as high as 4700m and La Paz is 3700m!). Luckily everyone gets sick in La Paz (!) so there is pretty much a Dr in the hostel everyday and I managed to see a lovely one who told me I had gastroenteritis as well as altitude sickness - my heart rate as 133 and for all non medically minded people out there your heart rate should be between 60 and 70 when your healthy!! I was put on lots of antibiotics and a rice and chicken diet and felt better within a day!

So La Paz is a pretty dirty, ugly capital city but it’s quirky (who builds a capital city in a bowl, at altitude!) and actually pretty safe - we didn’t hear of or run in to any trouble! We stayed at the Wild Rover hostel - ‘the world’s highest Irish hostel’ which we can definitely recommend - huge beds and the bathrooms seemed to the cleaned every half hour!! I think another reason people stay so long is the fact Bolivia is so cheap - we were able to eat out every night for about £2 which makes a huge difference to the rest of SA (we enjoyed the ‘world’s highest Indian restaurant’ to go along with the hostel’s title!).

One of the things to do in La Paz is go to the legendary ‘Cholita’ wrestling - think WWF gone sooo wrong that it’s bad in a very bad way! When you think of Bolivia you picture the native women in big skirts, little bowler hats and plats down their back - now think of them wrestling..? Yes, we went to see that! Most of the time however it was men, dressed up as Spiderman/ninjas/Mickey mouse/power rangers and also two ‘vertically challenged’ (this is PC - I looked it up) fighters which was just plain weird!! The week before we’d heard they’d been hitting each other with slabs of meat so we were super excited about this but unfortunately there was no meat hitting when we were there. It was a bizarre night out but just another ‘must do’ in La Paz - along with cycling down the world’s most dangerous road.

So La Paz, a weird place, was pretty cool and added to both of us now deciding that Bolivia was our favourite country visited in South America!! A big decision but I’m sure our entries on the Death Road, Rurranenbaque and the Salt Flats will show you why it gets the title!!



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