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South America » Bolivia » La Paz Department » La Paz
April 27th 2006
Published: April 27th 2006
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Well, out of the things you ought to do once in your life, chartering a plane has got to be up there. And if you´re going to do it, then you may as well do it in a cheap country like Bolivia. Which appears to be what we´ve just done with two friends. After two days aclimitizing in La Paz and taking it easy reacquainting ourselves with friends from various parts of our trip, we all endevoured to get up early and book a jungle trip this morning, before planning to head to Tiahuanacu to explore the ancient ruins. At 4pm, after much fruitless wandering and repetitive conversations with airline staff and travel agents, we cracked and decided that charting a plane for a mere 10 dollars extra each was a far better option than a 16 hour bus ride, 14 hour jeep trip or 3 days on a boat. Of course, we´ve still to return this evening to check the plane really is confirmed. And we´ve not seen the plane yet. Hopefully the wings will be duct tape free and we won´t need to run along the runway, Flintstones style, flapping our arms furiously to get it off the ground.....

The hours of stress came about as a result of one airline taking its planes out of service due to a dodgy propeller, so probably it´s just as well we didn´t get organised and book on the first day we arrived (needless to say, Champion´s League football got in the way again). Our determination to see the jungle, or more specifically, the pink dolphins promised on a pampas tour can be blamed for our rash decision. Or maybe it was the altitide again....anyway, if we don´t see anything much on the jungle/pampas tour after this, some dodgily Photoshoped pictures of dolphins painted pink may just appear as a subsitute.

Back-tracking a few days, we arrived in La Paz on early Tuesday morning, via a flight which although shorter was strangely more expensive than than the one last week from Sucre, such is the random number generator pricing system of Aerosur. Another spectacular flight, disturbingly close to the mountains, followed by a breathtaking (literally) arrival into the highest capital city in the world. That day and the following one were spent taking it easy, with meeting friends, football and exploring the city centre being pretty much the limit of the agenda.


We enjoyed wandering around the busy street markets, with soft alpaca jumpers being irresitable, but highly coloured stripy gringo trousers, woollen legwarmers and tassled hats being a step too far towards tackiness. Strangely enough, the llama foetuses, dried frogs, armadillos and dubious love potions on offer in the witches market nearby also proved easy to resist. Can´t quite imagine the conversations with Heathrow customs staff would go to well otherwise..

La Paz has a population of around 1 million, with El Alto, the city at the top on the altiplano having a similar number of inhabitants, mainly from the poorer parts of Bolivian society. The city certainly feels much larger than anywhere we´ve been since leaving BA and has a real buzz about it. The women in colourful native clothes and bowler hats are strongly in evidence, selling snacks, local produce and anything else you can imagine on the streets. Looking at the younger, westernised generation though, I expect that the traditonal hats, skirts with multiple petticoats, legwarmers and shawls will be a thing of the past within a few decades, remaining only in small villages or for special occasions.

******NEWSFLASH******

Made it to Tiahuanacu today and had great fun - well worth the visit should you get the chance...HOWEVER...




this being Bolivia, something as straightforward as chartering a plane is problematic...no planes until next week now as they´re all being ´checked´or something. Again throwing caution to the wind, we´re off tomorrow on a boat (yes) to Rurrenabaque, followed by the boat trip to the Pampas after that...

Hopefully the cellotape will have arrived by the time we get back to Rurrenabaque so we can geta plane to La Paz before our Bolivian visa runs out...need to make it to the Lake and the border pretty soon!



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28th April 2006

Re: Pink Dolphins
Be careful with those dolphins! From Amazon.com "Pink dolphins--and yes, in the Amazon River the flamingo-colored mammals do exist--are believed by Brazilians and Peruvians to take human form, impregnate women, lure lovers to an underwater paradise, and in various ways drive those who encounter them mad. "

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