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Published: March 27th 2010
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I am skipping my journey from Potosi to La Paz because it will seem a bit like a series of complaints about Bolvian transport but it was just normal stuff for bolivia so i do not want to give a bad impression. Both Potosi amnd Sucre looked very interesting, old colonial cities with a lot of history and I would have liked to have spent more time there. herte is a picture of the Casa de monedas in Potosi to prove I was there. Anyway, I got to La Paz without in the end without too much trouble.
La Paz is the highest capital city in the world but it has a couple of other things going for it as well. It is built in a bowl surrounded by volcanoes, with all of the poorest housing at the top of the valley and the smartest part, the old colonial part and the more modern part, in the bottom. It was not boiling hot because of the hight but still strong sun.
Havmng said that, the bottom of the bowl is still over 3500m. I have sort of got used the headache which comes and goes, and have dsicovered that
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a view of La Paz from the top it is impossible to rush any where, but I do not really like living at this altitude. It is now tolerable. I intended only spending a short time in La Paz before going to the Amazon basin but the plane kept geting cancelled because of the weather so I was able to explore the city a bit more. I also checked into a proper hotel, old colonial building with rooms around a covered courtyard, because it was only 20 quid.
One of the archeological highlights was Tiawanaku, a pre Inca comples between La Paz and lake titicaca. Although an important site it has been plundered over time for its stone and a lot remains undiscovered as the archeologists have not got there yet. One of the more important pieces was carted off and stood outside a football stadium in La Paz. It bears the scars of the riots over the years but has now been returned. Like us moving a piece of Stonehenge to Wembley. It is one of those places to which people attach all sorts of claims (the site of Atlantis, built by spacemen because the original inhabitants did not have the tools to carve the rock
etc ) and it is clealry alligned with the sun and lots of the symbols are linked to astronomy. The heads jutting out of the wall were in the "underground" temple and might have been images of defeated enemies. But who knows! It was a good day out
The second day I looked around the city. I was staying near the witches market where you can buy all sorts of touristy things like wooly hats, textiles .... and llama feotuses to ward off black magic. You will have to wait and see if i manage to get my selection of goodies through customs. There was also a series of colonial steets and offical buildings to see. Passes the time.
I was on the verge of cancelling the tip to the jungle as the plavne kept on beimng cancelled when i got the news about 9 o.clock on the third day that the flight would leave at 11.00 the next morning so it was off to pacjk quickly, pop the malaris pills and go to the jungle.
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