Losing it in La Paz - Bolivia

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June 10th 2006

Published: June 30th 2006

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Conmeister

Scary Lady

One of Uyuni´s unique statues

Having completed the 4wd crossing into Bolivia, spent a night in Uyuni, another strange kind of frontier town primarily used by travellers as a stop off before heading into or out of the country. Lots of strange statues in this town, which was freezing at night.
Caught the worst bus ever overnight to La Paz with no heating, and our bags on the roof, it was a 12 hour journey incl. breakdown with no banos (toilet) or recognisable banos stops.... I felt very sorry for the female travellers.

Arrived in La Paz the capital which sits in a basin with an amazing mountain backdrop, Cerro Llampu I think but don´t quote me. La Paz was slightly milder than Uyuni, and is a very busy if not dirty (the streets stink of urine). My arrival coincided with the start of the World Cup, which is where the cultural side of the trip took a backburner as things went a little mad and a bit Mediterranean i.e. drinking every day from early in the morning and living in gringo bars (Olivers Travels, Eng and Sol y Luna, Hol must get a mention).
Yes we did play football against some Bolivian 5-aside teams

Lets Start a War

Outside the local military base... every town should have one

and yes it is very painful playing at altitude when your British, you´ve had no breakfast and just consumed 3 pints an hour before during an England match.......
Drinking and womanising aside, the weekend we arrived coincided with a major festival.... sorry I´ve forgotten the name and no photos, but it was amazing with a constant procession of dance and music from early Saturday into the small hours of Sunday morning.
I also went mountain biking down what is known as the Worlds Most Dangerous Road (La Cumbre 4,700 meters just up from La Paz to Coroica in what is a tropical valley on the way into the Amazon Basin). It was an amazing experience tainted by low cloud and rain which made staying in the saddle very difficult..... I fell off and had it not been for the bike trapped round my waste I would have been over the cliff without a trace... fortunately one of the guides came to my rescue, though he seemed more concerned about the bike as he retrieved me from the perilous position I was in.
There is a link for photos from the day, which I have sent my dad for those that

La Paz Mercados Everywhere

Nuff said

know him.... if anyone else wants it let me know.
I was in La Paz for around 10 days, which included an infamous visit to Valle De Luna (not to be confused with the one in Chile), where I lost a 256K memory card and with it all my photos of Brasil and Argentina up to and including Buenos Aires (so enjoy what made it onto the blog as I will never get these back)..... totally gutted!!!.

From La Paz travelled to Lake Titicaca (Titikaka local spelling) and the town of Copacabana. Got very ill whilst here so not much happened other than the occassional World Cup game in Nemos Bar (proud to say owned by a Saints fan), and a trek up the nearest vista point.
From Copacabana visited Isla Del Sol which is the supposed birthplace of Inca mythology.... there is a dispute over ruins between the South and North of the island which makes trekking very interesting when the North try and charge you.... we did a U-turn and pleaded ignorance (being English I felt this was plausable).

Additional photos below

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