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Published: February 6th 2011
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bob on the steps
After a unusually early arrive we hung around La Paz's main square until the sun came up! LA PAZ - THE BEST CITY IN THE WORLD?
After a quite morning stumbling around the city with our packs, we crashed out in our first hostel for a few hours and then set out to explore the city. Thankfully, the nationwide ban of leaving your house on a sunday only applied in Paraguay and the main streets were buzzing.
For the next few hours we wondered around the streets, sampling the local food, checking out the markets and trying to get our heads round the full scope of the world's highest city.
La Paz's beauty is undescribable, it sits 3600 meters above sea level towering down on everything else. Cradled by mountains the city works it's way up to the peak, with expense and comfort buzzing in the centre and petering out as the brickwork climbs higher. Each road leads up or down, in or out of the cities revin.
We spent the day wondering around the city, trying to take in the epicness of our sourroundings and sampling the local delices (Bolivians have fried chicken down!). In the night we ventured out to see what La Paz's nightlife had to offer, making friends with
some crazy Cypress Hill loving locals and a Brazilian who was to haunt us for the next leg of our trip.
MONDAY IN LA PAZ After a "Americano" style breakfast in the cafe next to our hostel, we checked out and into some more socialable digs at the infamous Wild Rover hostel, with the intent of making some friends only to find ourselves in a hostel similar to a night out in London. Westerns ahoy!
We then spent the day wondering around the citys landscapes and booked ourselves in for a Death Road tour the following day.
The evening was spent writting out our wills and letters to loved ones, incase the inveditable happened.
TUESDAY - THE ROAD OF DEATH La Paz's world famous Death Road has made apperances on Top Gear and numerous local and international news reports due to the amount of deaths that have ocurred and the pure danger of the road itself.
Death Road has numerous names; Grove's Road, Coroico Road, Camino de las Yungas, El Camino de la Muerte, Road of Death or Death Road. (The latter being my favourite due to it's Eddie
Izzard sounds tone. ) is a 31 mile stretch of road that links La Paz to Coroico. It's danger is legenedry, so much so it was even christened "World's most dangerous road" by the Inter-American Development Bank in 1995. Roughly 200-300 people die per year on the road (according to wikipedia, a bit of exaggeration i think!)
What I am getting at with the above description, is that it's not a very nice road and today we were going to bike down it and hopefully survive to collect our free tee-shirt. Yea!
We set off nice and early, arriving at the summit of the mountain some 4,650 metres high shrouded in mist and condensation. Here, we're assigned bikes, safetly gear (like a helmet is gonna do much good?!) and finally have our moral rallied by our drill like tour guide before setting off into the mist.
The first section of the tour we drifted down through cloud and mist alike. After a slightly muddy and rainy start we got to the entrance of the death road itself. Here we had to pay a small fee for the pleasure of taking our lives into our own hands and
also sign in with our details incase that pleasure became a reality.
The next section of the ride was unbelievable, we decended through mountainus cloud on twisting and spiralling roads eventually coming out into into clear skys, baking sunshine and mosquitos glore, all set to the backdrop of Amazon rainforest. Throughtout the ride the temperature when from trousers and jumpers to shorts and tee-shirts the more we dropped though drop the mountain face.
The guides handled the tour well, stopping us at the right times and places to keep the energy and enthusisanum levels high.
The final section of the road was more a dirt track, whipping and whining through a dense forest. After a few deep breathes we threw ourselves down, Kjersti choosing to fly down at epic speeds whilst some of us chose to takes things at a more leisurely pace, enjoying the beauty that surrounded us.
Once we hit the bottom the bikes were packed up and we headed to a near by hotel for a much needed shower and food. It was here the guide decided to tell us all his horror stories about the road and all the deathed that had occured
on it, thankfully once we'd finished the ride.
We were then given the choice of taking the old road back to La PAz or the new road, the strong majority voted for the new one!
WEDNESDAY - THE MARKET Feeling a bit worse for wear after our downhill adventure, we set out to Calle Jean. A section of La Paz which has been beautifully preserved from cononial times.
First stop was the Musical Instrument museum, holding a history of Bolivia's own unique and somewhat weird musical instruments.
After paying a mere five pence enterance fee, we entered into a courtyard with numeroussmall rooms, holidng a selection of strange instruments with plenty of oppotunies for the general public to have a go.
Whilst i attempted to hammer out some tunes on the gear we could get our hands on, Kjersti found feeding the museums pet budgees more entertaining.
Next stop was the museum of the Triple Alliance War, we ventured a few doors up only to find it closed.
With this we had no other option except to throw ourselves at the mercy of La Paz's biggets market.
Spralling some 34 blocks the Buenos
Aires mercado seemed to go on forever and ever. We instantly became lost as oppossed to wondering around the market and although Kjersti seemed to be in heaven with the endless stalls of dresses, shoes, bags, clothes and everything else you could ever want, it was somehwat daunting the actual sheer size of the place.
After buying some much needed essentials and some other not so need essentials (apparently it's good practice to travel with at least 4 pairs of shoes) we headed out of the market and back to our hostel.
That night on the recommendation of a local Bolivian we decied to check out the nightlife on Calle Jean.
Ending up in a small cafe/bar and under the guidence of a friendly waiteress, we decided to check out the Flamenco show in the backroom. Along with half the drinks menu.
The stage held two guitarists/singers, one percussionist resembling a aging Antino Bantaries and a Bolivian lady dressed in tradional Flaminco outfit.
Now, i've never had a big interest in Flamenco before or thought much of it but the show was truely mesmorising.
The guitarists were highly skilled, playing their instruments in a fashion i
didn't realise possible whilst Anatonio hammered out some percision perfect percussion on what looked like a large box. The dance held the main spot light throughout the show with crazied and delicate footwork. One momment hammering the stage with gusto and aggression to the next gently gliding from step to step.
After a pick and mix selection of drinks off the cocktail menu, pizza and a blinding show, we stumbled back to our hotel.
THURSSDAY - THE CITY On our last day in La Paz, we literally just wondered round the streets. In a city like La Paz though, this isn't as boring as it sounds. We spent a good fe 6 hours walking from district to district, market to juice stalls, bridges to cobbled streets. That day and still looking back at the experience still amaze me. I could spend days wandering around that city and not get bored. I don't think my limited literasy skills could do the landscape justice, so i'll leave it to the photos to do the talking.
*****We're currently having some computing problems so wouldn't be able to get the photos up until for a day
or 2. Also sorry for the delay, morte updated to follow!*****
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