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Published: September 10th 2007
Buenos Tardes (Good afternoon)
Leaving Yosemite we had a 4hr drive to the airport hotel at SFO, arriving at 10.45PM, and then another hour returning the rental car. After repacking for the flight it was up at 4am to have the best chance of getting on the 1st flight out - the joys of staff travel!
We did get on though and then we cooled our heels in Miami International Airport. It was a good introduction to South America as nearly everyone there spoke only Spanish. We got on the flight leaving about 11pm arriving at La Paz 6 am. The altitude was about 4000m and after a sleepless night on the airplane we were a bit knocked about. We took things really slow and got to our hostel at 7.30am, 8 hours before our check in time. We slept in the lobby whilst they got us a room organised early. Once in our room we slept for about 4/5 hours and then went off to explore that afternoon.
Our hostel is really really lovely. Clean, heaps of atmosphere, on main market street and great coffee shop on ground floor. Plenty of hills walking up and down the cobbled
streets which made us a bit puffed but the kids seemed to do ok with the altitude.- typical. The markets are delightful. Everyone is friendly and not too pushy with sales. This is a bit different from Africa as the people there were very aggressive. The girls are going crazy spending their savings. The streets are amazingly clean with uniformed cleaners walking up and down sweeping and even scrubbing. Lots of uniformed (army gear) police and tourist police with guns around the place. So generally we feel pretty safe.
We have spent three days here now and we are still in love with the place. The sights, sounds, smells and tastes of this city are fantastic. The people are lovely. A bit shy but most are really friendly. There are ladies in traditional dress everywhere, wearing their colourful blankets and rounded hats. Some don’t like their photos taken others do. We have taken photos of kids around the place and then got them printed and gave them their photos. They absolutely loved them. Caused quite a commotion in one place, when all the market ladies came running to see the photos we gave them. Now after three days the
Boy in music shop
When we bought Sarah´s guitar cast this little fellow helped us outgirls are quite happy walking down the street dodging traffic like locals and accept it as quite normal. It is amazing how quick you acclimatise.
We went on a city tour to have a look from a hilltop - La Paz city is in a bit of a dish-shaped valley. In the background you can see some snow capped mountain peaks of the Andes. Our guide Carlos gave us a good rundown of the place and took us to the “Moon Valley”, an area of eroded sandstone which was pretty specky.
After 3 days here we have all acclimatised as far as the altitude goes and only get a bit puffed going up stairs or the steep streets so hopefully we are all ready for the Inca trail which starts in about a week.
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Jo Stockall
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Try this email
The education department must have a block on the emails coming in on jstoc22@eq.edu.au so try my home email on njstockall@bigpond.com. All the photos of Bolivia look great - gives me the travel bug bigtime. Jo