Seeing La Paz through fuzzy coloured glasses

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Altitude does funny things to people. It makes your hair stand on end, causes chip packets to explode, makes you exhausted just brushing your teeth and chewing a wad of green leaves and dribbling on yourself normal.

The lower amount of oxygen can cause some things to swell and unfortunately this meant the cells in my eyes so I was reduced to having eyesight something like opening your eyes underwater.

Lucky for me though, La Paz is a city of riotous colour and perhaps a place where not seeing the finer details of things is a blessing!

At home in a valley, overshadowed by the Illamani mountain the steep streets offer a maze of alleyways to explore. Market stalls crowd almost all the sidewalk forcing you to take your chances with the insane traffic. Shoe shine boys wear black balaclavas and police carry sawn off shotguns.

Its a city of stark contrast between poverty and technology. An old man cuts keys by hand next to a flat screen tv showing the English Premier League. Children beg outside a cinema showing the latest Spiderman movie while a woman in traditional dress talks on a mobile phone.

In the streets, many people protested about free trade agreements and using local products instead of imported ones. There was also an election on and the two parties didnt agee on policy so supporters threw rocks at one another across the street.

In the markets you can buy everything from remote controls to pirate DVDs. I looked for a new set of eyes amongst the dried llama fetuses in the witches market but couldn't find anything but frogs. Could be useful for catching flies.....

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Photos

Hairaising adventures
One of the effects of altitude....a Peruvian coiffe

Comments

[Shella]

Little Budgie
Hello gorgeous girl It is such a fabulous treat to read your intelligently written blogs. We can't wait to your home. Love you heaps. Shella