Frantic La Paz

South America » Bolivia » La Paz Department » La Paz
October 4th 2010

Published: October 13th 2010

Ola,

We arrived at the bus station in Puno at 5am, and there we ran into Kat and Tom from Inca Trail fame. They were off to Copacabana and were going to be on the same bus as us and Belinda. The trip was with Tour Peru, a company that we were very happy with and would thoroughly recommend.

The journey was spectactular as it was along side the tranquil, blue water of Lake Titicaca.

The bus arrived at the turnoff to Copacabana and stopped and they offloaded everyone heading in that direction into collectivos, little mini-buses, in order to take them the rest of the way to the border. We can only assume that they had to pick up some other form of transportation once they crossed the border but we are not entirely sure on that. The rest of the bus carried on to Desaguro. We got off the bus, lined up, were stamped out of Peru and then started walking across the bridge to the Bolivian side. At this point, a policeman started walking towards us and ushered us into a small building where he took our passports into a small room. We had heard a lot of travellers having a ficticious "departure tax" extracted from them when crossing into Bolivia, so we were a little worried. Fortunatly, the two police officers were extremely friendly and just wanted to know why we had various currencies in our wallets. We explained the reasoning, we will be visiting those countries in the future, and they seemed happy enough and they let us on our way.

Enterring Bolivia was a snap as we just had to fill out an immigration card and then have our passports stamped and we were on the road once more.

After we entered Bolivia, the scenery became more rugged. In the distance, across the altiplano, there were jagged, towering, snow-capped peaks looming in the background. They were reminiscent of the Rockies and both Val and Peter were a little homesick.

The rest of the drive into La Paz was quite painless. We went through the suburb of El Alto, which is unremarkable except for the fact that everyone seems to build a three or four storey apartment building that is quite ugly, and the drop a two storey house on top, complete with tiled roofline and collonades. It was odd to witness to say the least!

We continued along and then turned a bend and La Paz spread out majestically before us in the valley. The buildings clamber up the sides of the hills and there is a snowcapped mountain in the background, keeping watch as if a sentinel over the entire city. It was enchanting to say the least.

We arrived at the bus station and walked over to our hostel with Belinda in tow. By this time, we have started referring to her, affectionately of course, as "Puppy" as she seems to follow us everywhere. We checked into Adventure Brew Hostel and spent most of the day relaxing up in the rooftop bar, enjoying the great views of the city.

La Paz, located at 3660 metres above sea level, is a very frenetic and chaotic city. There are loud noises, bright colours, swarms of people, insane drivers and zebras helping people crossing the street. Well, they were people dressed up as zebras, but it was still odd to see. The pollution is terrible here. Everything spews out black smoke and since the city is located in a valley, a lot of the pollution gets trapped in.

The city is very hilly, but we have done our best to wander around it. We think we have probably walked over half of it by now! Unfortunatly, there really aren't a lof of things to see and do in town. We visited the two tourist streets and saw the variety of things that were available for purchase. We also went to the witch's market. No, they weren't selling any witches. Instead, one could by a dead llama fetus. Seriously. They were hanging up everywhere. Apparently, it is good luck if one buries a dead llama fetus under their house during construction. We think it is an odd tradition to say the least. We also went to visit the Plaza Murillo. The plaza is very scenic actually. It has a large statue in the middle and is flanked by several pretty buildings including the govenor's palace, complete with bullet holes, and the legislative palace. The legislative palace is a gorgeous yellow with a domed roof. it remined Val and Peter very much of Europe. There are also some great viewpoints in town. We went up to Mirador Kili Kili and the whole of La Paz was spread out before us.

There are also a variety decent restaurants in town. We went to one called Star of India that, not surprisingly, served Indian food. It was decent, but a little underwhelming. We think that was because there was too little spice in our vegetable korma and llama tikka masalla. Apparently, they put all of their spice into their vindaloo curry. If one finishes it, then they get a free t-shirt. Valerie tried a bit of someone's and, judging by her contorted facial expression, the vindaloo was quite hot.

Unfortunatly, bad things have also happened in La Paz. Peter was robbed. Someone, who obviously knew what they were doing, used a tool, probably a small knife or one of the saws from a swiss army knife, to open Valerie and Peter's locked room. Once inside, the thief, who was almost certainly a fellow traveller staying in the hostel, proceeded to use the same technique on the pad lock on Peter's locker in the room. Once inside the locker, the thief made off with 90 USD, 200 Argentinian pesos, 300 Uruguayan pesos and 300 Bolivianos. For whatever reason, maybe he was a thief with a conscious we're not too sure what was going through his mind, he left Peter with some USD, Argentinian peso, Uruguayan pesos and Bolivianos. Nor did he take any of Peter's Chilean or Brazilian money. he also didn't take Peter's ipod, camera, medical booklet, bank cards, credit cards or passports. All in all, Peter was out $260 Canadian. It's not the end of the world, but it is very dissapointing and frustrating when something is stolen, let alone from a locked locker in a locked room.

We reported the theft to the staff who, along with the bar manager Ted, were all very supportive. However, the manager Humberto has been less than helpful. There is a sign in each room that says that the hostel is not responsible for any lost or stolen items unless they are placed in the hostel safe or locked in the lockers in the rooms. Originally, Humberto was saying that maybe we didn't have the money in the first place and we were making things up. Then he would only offer us a night's accomodation as compensation which would be the equivalent of $20 USD. This was unacceptable. We showed Humberto the damage to both locks, but he didn't think that either of them had been forced or tampered with. He upped his offer to half of our accomodation, which would amount to $50. Still, this was unacceptable. A hostel prides itself on safety and security. If this cannot be provided, then why would anyone stay at that hostel. If a traveller's personal possessions are unsafe while locked in a locker inside a locked room, then how can a person feel safe in that hostel? Why would a person want to stay in that hostel if their security, and the security of their personal possesion cannot be guaranteed? After speaking more with the general manager, we were able to get our accomodation covered. At least we got back.

There is a microbrewery attached to the hostel so we decided to go for a tour of that. It's basically 6 tanks and a giant kettle with a few Bolivian guys and a very odd American. It was the most unorthodox brewery tour that any of us had ever seen. We did get to taste some beer though, including an India Pale Ale that wouldn't be available to the public for another two weeks. It was fantastic! The beer tastes much better before it goes through the filtration process.

On our last day in town, we didn't do a whole lot. We changed some money into Chilean pesos, and we went to Brosso for ice cream, again. You can get three scoops and unlimited toppings for less than $2 and it is very good ice cream!!! Peter even went twice!!! Valerie discovered a pizza cone, which was dough in a cone shape filled with tomato sauce, cheese and ham, a very interesting and delicious combination. We also found a royalist dog. It kept barking at the statue of Simon Bolivar, who is credited with winning Bolivia's independence. After that, we just hung out at the hostel with Puppy, talked to the barman from Birmingham, that's supposed to rhyme or so he thinks, and then we hopped on our bus to Uyuni.

Bye for now,
Peter and Valerie

Things we learned in La Paz.
-Ice cream truly is Peter's kryptonite
-Apparently, a locked door and a locked padlock are not enough to deter some thieves
-The air quality in La Paz is poorer than China!!!

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