La Paz

---

Heading to La Paz was a choice to be made either by 50 minute flight or 13 hr overnight bus. Hastily we decided on the flight which flew you straight over the Andes and up to the 4000m La Paz airport in El Alto. With the air so thin the runway is twice as long as a standard runway due to the planes requiring that length for landing and take-off. You could definitely feel the thin air, but it was great to be heading down to the 3500m city of La Paz, which pretty much happens all of a sudden. La Paz is like a bowl, with the top being El Alto and the main city at the bottom of the bowl. We checked into a really nice guesthouse run by some Americans, with a hint of Aussie thrown in for good measure. The guesthouse (Rendezvous) had a great feature, an entire room full of DVD’s. It was great on occasion to sit back, relax and watch a film- that night we ended up getting takeaway pizza and watching Goldfinger!! There were more Bond films that were watched later in the week too J

The next day was spent doing the La Paz city tour. We headed to the main square, which was beside the infamous San Pedro prison. Previously a British drug dealer had done tours of the prison as a way to make money. In Bolivia prison life is tough if you are poor. You have to buy your cell- which often can be a flat and food. Most people end up growing drugs, and we were told that on a daily occurrence someone will poke their head out of the corrugated iron roof, throw a baby diaper out onto the street, where someone is waiting to pick it up and run off with it. Inside the nappy is pure cocaine. Due to the British drug dealer no longer there, there are no official tours anymore. The Government had to put a stop to them after some people carried them on, but there was no safety for tourists and many were robbed and even raped. Apparently you can bribe yourself in as a tourist, but often you have to bribe your way back out again, costing £1000’s in some cases as the guards and prisoners are both extremely corrupt. The tour showed us the crazy markets, witches markets and government buildings. The government square is heavily protected and has seen many protests. The recent president out of spite from the last president who privatised everything, has gone very much against western cultures sometimes and even changed the squares clock face to go anti-clockwise, because his view is if water goes down the plughole the other way, then so should clocks. We were also told about how Cholitas- the traditional Bolivian women flirt and why they wear bowler hats- again blame Spanish and European influence and their desire to sell naff fashion products to a country which really doesn’t need them. We then checked out the city cliff park- a park on a cliff.

Unfortunately the following day was a quiet day due to us both not feeling quite 100%. However by the evening I was fine, so decided to meet up with one of our city guides, who we’d got on really well with. The next day was more productive and we checked out the Valle de la Luna- moon valley, which had some awesome landscapes to boast. I then headed out to a pampas tour in the Amazon.

---

Comments

[AnaMerka]

La Paz is a great spot for travellers
La Paz is a great spot for travelers