La Paz this, Copacabana That.

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Today is our last day in Bolivia. When we first booked La Paz into our itinerary we were a bit wary of what to expect when we got here (eventually after being delivered from Santa Cruz), but now we know that it was well worth the time filling between Machu Picchu (if it didn´t mud slide all over the place) and Carnival in Rio.

After sleeping out all our bitterness on the first night here, we were off nice and early for our 4 hour bus trip to Copacabana. The countryside is quite beautiful besides most of the buildings being half finished and composed of mud/random pieces of wood. Copacabana is a quaint little town on the shores of Lake Titicaca, or so we thought until we got into the heart of the action. On the 2 days that we were there the Festival of The Virgens of Candeleria was on and therefore the Bolivians were at full drinking pace. We didn´t quite grasp what the festival was about but we witnessed a non stop parade and a ceremony called blessing of the cars. It involved praying to a shrine which had been constructed with flowers and streamers (and any other shiny objects a magpie would find attractive) on the bonnet of said vehicle, and then praying to the car, skulling the best part of a warm cup of beer and throwing the remainder onto the windshield. Apparently this is to ask for protection of the families whilst driving.

We also had the priviledge to witness a traditional Bolivian bullfight on the last day of the festival. Scaffolding constucted of wood and twine (i´m pretty sure) were mounted around the arena for all attendees to utilise for a small fee. Once a parade from the mainstreet had done its lap within the arena we waited in anticipation for the fighting to begin. It turned out to be a free for all system, allowing any locals (usually the drunkest) to jump in the ring and have a go at taunting the bull. At some stage there would have been about 9 drunken Bolivians surrounding the poor half sized bull, some even chasing after it in order to get a rise. Of course there was the token uncle who didn´t know when to stop, cockiness got the better of him and before you know it he´s been upended several times, much to our sadistic amusement.

On the 3rd day in Bolivia we made our way back to La Paz nursing third degree burns aquired from the high altitude and lack of slip, slop slapping. However we survived long enough to make it out on the town with a group of Aussies (dominant race in the hostel world in South America) until the early hours of the Morning. Which brings me to TRAVELLERS LESSON #7: Sometimes you just have to suck it up. The day following our debut into crazy Bolivian nightlife, we rose from a brief one hour sleep to pull ourselves together for a day of Quad Biking the outskirts of La Paz... and as much as we suffered and moaned, it was well worth the pain. Once we were stationed on our Ferociously Fast Mega Awesomer Quad bikes, we were guided up and down some of the steepest, rockiest, muddiest and dangerous roads La Paz countryside has to offer. It was amazing. I would now like to add a quad bike (next to a kitten) on my ´To Buy´list. There was only a brief moment where I nearly rolled my bike over into an oncoming truck that made me scream like a little girl, much to the amusement of the onlooking Chicos.

So dirty and sore we retired to bed to have a much needed 12 hour sleep before rising to the task of once again packing our bags. We knocked off a few La Paz musts (San Pedro Jail, Coca Museum and the Witches Market - Specialising in Llama Foetus) and are now anticipating the warmth and sunshine of Rio De Janiero!!! However to get there we have to catch 3 flights and stay at Chile airport for 5 hours in the middle of the night, so I will try and avoid writing a blog to vent my travellers hate when we will once more be sleep deprived.

Hope everyone is well back home, I love hearing from you all, it tends to curb my homesickness, so keep sending me emails with corrections of my spelling. xxx

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