La Paz: Llama fetuses are a hot commodity

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We left Copacabana with our bellies full of api on Saturday morning in a minibus full of at least 18 people, which made me a bit queezy after Sim explained the high probability of vans tipping over when above capacity. As a result, I was pretty much death gripping Sim´s leg at every winding curve over a cliff. We made it to the the crossing of the Lake Titicaca straight, at which point the foreigners were ushered off the bus while the locals stayed on the bus to cross the water on the bus...we definitely didn´t appreciate watching our packs floating away from us while we were still on shore--needless to say we had to run after our beeping minibus as it started rolling away on the other shore. Noted: refuse to get off the bus next time.

We arrived in the La Paz in the afternoon and finally got to the Wild Rover hostel, which was full of people from the UK. Th hostel was packed full of them (I think about 180 people)--so much so that I didn´t even feel like I was in a south american city because we were surrounded by so much english.

La Paz is really just another big city, and doesn´t have much to offer in terms of beautiful architecture or friendly people. Although, we did enjoy not being cat-called for once in the past 2 months! Refreshing. The vastness of the city is, however, very impressive with the snowcapped Huayna mountain in the background and the city creeping up the surrounding mountains.

The highlight of the day was going to the Witch´s Market and seeing the bundles of llama fetuses hanging about nonchalantly for sale--they apparently ward off evil spirits... I should´ve gotten one for Tanya as a housewarming gift :P

The Sunday highlight was definitely going to watch Cholita Wrestling. We got front row seats to watch Nacho Libre fight off evil and the traditional Bolivian women duke it out in the ring. First it was nacho vs. nacho, then nacho vs. cholita (which was actually really disturbing to watch a guy beat down a woman. At least the crowd was booing him and cheering on the cholita). The craziest was cholita vs. cholita. One of them was called La Loca (The Crazy One) and rightfully so--she was a complete nutcase. Towards the end she got really riled up and threw the other cholita over the railing into the crowd, dragged her up the bleechers, and smashed her head against the wooden support beams. The previous fights looked really fake, but this one seemed so legit with red splotches left on the wooden beams from victim-cholita´s blood strewn face. The audience started throwing bottles and food at La Loca, which made her even more pissed so she grabbed people´s soda bottles, opened them and sprayed us in anger because we were chanting her off as the loser. By the end of the match I was in another chair and smelt of lemonade on my entire left side. Insanity!

When we got back we booked our trip to the Pampas Jungle to leave on Tuesday. I wanted to go bike the World´s Deadliest Road on Monday, but Simonne didn´t feel comfortable doing it. Moreover, we paid more for the Jungle trip than anticipated in order to fly, so I´m just going to have to add that dangerous adventure to my list of things to do when I return to South America. This list is growing at a rapid pace so my travel buddy for South America Take 2 better be prepared for some ridiculous adventures :D

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