Blogs from La Paz Department, Bolivia, South America - page 4

Our last day in La Paz so we start with some culture; the Calle Jean museums; one ticket gives you access to 3 museums on an old colonial street. Google Maps says it’s an 11 minute ‘mostly flat’ walk from the hotel. Google maps doesn’t mention the flights of stairs. I’d challenge anyone from Google Maps to walk 0.6 miles, including 100 stairs at 4000m altitude in 11 minutes. We reach our first museum and they ask for ID. Someone is going to have to walk back to the hotel and get our passports. I’m not sure who. Neither of us can breath. We convince them to accept a photo from my phone, which is a relief. We visit the Museo Costumbrista which tells the history of La Paz in costumes and dioramas. It’s actually really ... read more

Today, the high altitude portion of our trip begins. I’m not really looking forward to it - I’m not sure I’m designed for altitude. To make matters worse, I have a stinking cold. We reach the airport 2 hours before our flight. The airline recommends a minimum of 3, which seems excessive in the middle of the night. But we’ve left it very tight. After check in comes immigration. The queue is enormous and it takes 30 minutes to almost reach the front. Then the computers crash and what little action there was grinds to a halt. We finally reach our gate 8 minutes before boarding commences. We are flying to La Paz. The airport is 4080 metres above sea level. It’s craziness. I wouldn’t want to live 4080 metres from the sea horizontally, let alone ... read more

Off the the bus station again for another long trip on public transport. The bus is much the same, but a little less flash as the one to Puno a couple of days ago. This time there is no lunch stop so we stock up on biscuits to get us through the day. However we do have a border crossing and a farewell to Mike. The check out of Peru and check into Bolivia goes smoothly. We have to take our big bags with us but can leave our small bags in the bus. Perhaps they are only interested in really big quantities of drugs. We have hugs and tears all round as Mike leaves us and Erica takes control of our unruly group. The rural houses in Bolivia look a little more substantial than those ... read more

There's something not right about going from the tranquil and scenic Lake Titicaca to a busy, smelly and big city of La Paz. It feels that it should have been the other way around! Nonetheless, we didn't want to stick around La Paz for more than two nights, for us, large cities aren't our favourite as there are better things to see and do outside of them. We stayed at a hostel (the adventure brew hostel) which was a good place to meet people and with events happening most nights. We found ourselves having a bit of a go at karaoke on the fist night (somehow the footage is missing!) and played a lot of pool and table tennis. It also had a great BBQ ip on the rooftop on our final night there. One thing ... read more

Bolivia Part 1 Copacabana and Isla Del Sol (01/07/2018 - 03/07/2018) Copacabana Copacabana; a small, pleasant town on the shore of Lake Titicaca (3800m), and my first stop in Bolivia. The Peru-Bolivia border was very quick and easy (20 minutes), and there were no issues. I didn't really know exactly what to expect in Bolivia. I knew the infrastructure would deteriorate (it definitely did, hello bumpy roads and increasingly rustic buildings) and I knew it would be cheaper (great for my bank balance!). But I had also heard the food was nothing to write home about. Regardless of the latter, I was super excited to see what Bolivia had to offer and determined to find some delicious Bolivian food. Here in Copacabana, you can eat your body weight in trout. Interesingly, the trout consumed by the ... read more