Struggling to breathe in La Paz

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Not wanting to stay in Uyuni longer than we had to, as there was nothing really there, we took an overnight bus to La Paz the capital of Bolivia. The bus ride was 11hours and we checked into our hostel at 7am had a bit of a nap, a late breakfast and headed into town to explore. Being at such an altitude even walking down the street left us short of breath, so you can imagine the state of us two unfit idiots after climbing the six floors to our hotel room!!

La Paz was a welcome surprise as I wasn't expecting it to be so built up and clean. For a capital city it's not very big but it is full of Bolivian culture and that's exactly what we wanted. We just so happened to be exploring the city on Bolivias republic day so the presidents speech was on a big screen outside of parliament and surrounding us were all divisions of military and native representatives. It was fabulous to see and we waited around for a good while for their parade but after a few hours we needed coffee. Then the heavens opened so we didn't get to see the march bit, but we also didn't get soaked.

When the skies cleared we went to souvenir shop at the markets. There was the Witches markets of small stalls with herbal remedies, lucky miniatures and Llama fetuses a plenty. Ladies in traditional dress sitting on their cloth backpacks lining the pavements selling everything from flowers to door handles and all in between.

Our short city break in La Paz was nice, apart from eating something dodgy on the last night and getting a bit ill just in time for our bus ride to Copacabana, lake Titicaca.

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