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Published: September 27th 2010
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We arrived in La Paz, capital of Bolivia - which is also the highest capital in the world, in the afternoon after coming by bus and boat from Copacabana on Lake Titicaca. As we started to drive through the beginning area of La Paz (Alto) we became quite worried that this was the main part- To say it looked like slums would be doing slums around the world an injustice. It was so busy and dirty, there were people everywhere, so many dogs, there were children and women begging, people trying to sell whatever they could, and it just generally felt a bit dodgy. We found out afterwards this was an area called El Alto which is the poor suburb of La Paz and basically a no go area for tourists - luckily we were not staying there! We kept driving to the main area of La Paz which is at the bottom of the canyon and looked more as we expected (still very poor, but we were a lot more comfortable). We had a room booked at the Loki after enjoying our stay at the Cusco branch, in a nice part of town so checked into a dorm room with
Mindy and Joel and went down to the bar for a traditional Bolivian snack of chips, cheese and gravy!
After checking emails and unpacking we started to get ready as we were about to have our first proper night out since arriving in South America; Vic got a chance to straighten her hair fir the first time in over 2 weeks and put a full face of make up on which she loved and Scott got to get out of his combats and boots and into jeans and a shirt! The four of us then went for a curry at a place called the Star of India- yes in Bolivia they have what they claimed was the best curry house in South America- another twist on the truth by Bolivians and it wasn’t quite the same as at home but it was good none the less and we all enjoyed it. Vic had her usual onion bhajis and chicken korma but Scott was brave and tried Llama kebabs which he really enjoyed! Lllama meat is as common here as chicken so it’s not as odd as it sounds but Vic didn’t fancy it at all, even though Scott really
liked it. We also found out that it was Bolivian Valentines Day that night which none of us knew- they don’t celebrate it on 14th Feb here but on 21st September- which explained all the stalls selling roses and cards that we passed- we thought it was just a romantic city! After the curry we headed back to our hostel bar for some card games and drinks- the boys had a shot called blood bomb which was vodka, red bull and grenadine- yuk- and the girls had baileys and jagermeister- much classier. After a few more drinks we got a taxi out to a bar/club in La Paz called Mongoes hearing it was the place to go- busy it was but we were the only westerners at first which was a bit strange but it was fine and we all had a really fun night, getting back to the hostel at 3.30am!
Needless to say the next day we all felt quite rough but headed out to explore La Paz and came across the Witches Market- stall after stall selling potions, spells and llama foetuses which are meant to bring good luck- we passed on those. It was surprisingly
sunny and warm and we all got ice creams and sat outside in the main square, which felt a bit out of place in such a poor city but was nice, before heading back to the hostel for an afternoon rest and some dinner before we had to catch our night bus to Uyuni, which is 12 hours south of La Paz near the Chile border, to do a three day tour of the Salar de Uyuni including the famous salt flats which we had read so much about at home.
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Scotty, what's all this about Vic being happy to do her hair and make-up....what about you, bet you were over the moon to get your pink straighteners out! All looks blinding so far mate, I bet you're bloody glad you took the plunge now. I've no idea how your dodgy knees are coping with all this trekking, but if they can survive this then they can surely make a return to MNLF duty on your return... Enjoy the next part of your travels you two!