Blogs from La Paz, La Paz Department, Bolivia, South America - page 129

So we left San Pedro believing we still had luck on our side despite having to wait 6 hours for our coach, but oh no we soon realised we were sh*t out of luck. Made it about an hour outside Calama when the coach started making strange noises and grinded to a halt - so there we are stuck in the desert in the middle of the night waiting for a replacement coach - feeling a bit annoyed when out of nowhere the tv came on and it was Herbie!! All on the coach were then content for the hour long wait, even though it was in spanish we loved it! So our next coach arrived and we all trotted on two by two and set off again. All was going well for about 10 hours ... read more

Last night´s blog entry ended on such a bad note that I wanted to give some more perspective to the matter. I have never felt unsafe traveling in South America. Occasionally, I have felt nervous for our stuff as the overwhelming majority of crime is the petty version. Matt, Jill and I have been extremely vigilant when it comes to safety. We never leave our stuff unattended and often loop all our bags together when we are waiting for the bus. What happened to the Swiss couple would never happen to us since we never put our bag of important stuff down. We had a fake wallet precisely because we knew it had a higher risk of being stolen but it is easier to get into a wallet to pay for small stuff like taxis and ... read more

Suffering from my first case of the Inca Quickstep (aka food poisoning) in nearly 5 months of travel, which isn´t too bad, I guess. So may not be up to much in the next week or so. The Death Road trip that was scheduled for this morning has been postponed, probably until next Sunday or Monday. In the meantime, will spend my recovery time watching movies (the new Johnny Cash movie this arvo), visiting Tiahuanaco, reading, going to a Manu Chao concert on Saturday night, and trying to put food into my shrunken and contorted stomach. See y´ all later!... read more

That's Sucre! We're in La Paz now, but leaving in half an hour for Peru! La Paz doesn't have the best reputation as it's quite dangerous at night, but we've not had any problems. La Paz is the highest city in the world (everything in Bolivia is a highest something!) It's set in the mountains so the view is really cool. Not too much to say, there's a cool witches market that sells llama foetuses to ward off evil spirits. And there's quite a few market stalls...errr that's it. Some of our group cycled on the World's most Dangerous Road but that's not our kind of thing. (She means not her kind of thing! Eric) Had a fabulous Thai dinner last night- yummy! Chicken in spicy peanut sauce. Ok best go, off to Lake Titicaca! Bye ... read more

It’s the 3rd day of the Carnival, no, not Rio, or Salvador, but downtown La Paz, and the energy and excitement and danger are just as full-on. In fact it’s been full-on from Uyuni, thru’ Potosi, Oduro and La Paz…the primary danger being getting soaked as packs of young, and not so young, roam the streets, armed to the teeth with water ‘pistols’, military design, star wars colours and shapes, awfully phallic, giant purple, bulbous headed, red, yellow and green shafts, the pumping action by grown-up boys, sheathed in their plastic condom coveralls, even Siggies greatest critics would have to believe this one! also the water bombs, 12 for 1 Boliviano (about 12 cents) luckily the general aim is shithouse but this also means more potential of getting hit by wild throws! All along the street, ... read more