The highest capital in the world

Sunday, June 26, 2011
La Paz, Bolivia
Myself and the rest of our group got into La Paz around Thursday lunchtime and then caught our pre-arranged transfer to the Hotel Senorial Montero.

La Paz is the highest capital city in the world, the centre sitting at an altitude of 3,636m above sea level (confusingly, La Paz is the governmental capital of Bolivia but Sucre is the judicial capital). It sits in a bowl, sprawling out in a valley between mountains. The richest areas are at the bottom, due to the lower altitude and higher temperatures, with property getting cheaper the higher up the bowl you go. The city is a mass of steep streets and cobblestoned alleys containing hotels, cafes, small shops, and markets. One of the most noticeable things about the city is that many older women wear bowler hats. This stems from the past when bowler hats were introduced - men didn't want to wear them so the women adopted them instead. Although I'd been at higher points on the tour already and not suffered too badly, La Paz's altitude was really starting to affect me and any small uphill section was a real struggle.

After an orientation walk in the area around our hotel in the afternoon, we all went for evening drinks at La Paz's top gringo haunt, Oliver's Tavern (aka Ollies), which my Lonely Planet described as either the worst or best cultural experience in La Paz, due to its mix of gringos, beer, football, music and English food. I loved it! Most of the group went back to the hotel at about 10pm, but I ended up at a hostel bar with a couple of the other guys and got back to the hotel at 6am! I'd paid for a day trip to Lake Titicaca at 7.30am in the morning, but after turning up with just an hours kip, Mike had one look at the state of me and made me go back to bed! The rest of a day comprised fish and chips for lunch at Ollies, a wander round the local markets, a kip in the afternoon, then a beautiful Argentinian steak at a restaurant a few doors down from Ollies in the evening. Virtually all the rest of the group had gone biking down the "World's Most Dangerous Road" (aka Death Road) so didn't get back till late. I'd decided to give that a miss because of my lack of ability of being able to ride a bike in a straight line - trying to ride a bike downhill along a narrow winding road with a sheer drop off one side probably wouldn't have been a good idea!

On Saturday, most of the group went for a tour of La Paz which turned out to be a really enjoyable tour, comprising the following:

- A visit to the Museum of Precious Metals, which contained gold and silver artefacts such as head-dresses and body wear.

- A tour around the main square, Plaza Murillo, alongside which is the Cathedral, Palacio Presidencial and Palacio Legislativo.

- The "Valley of the Moon" - a rocky, other-worldly (hence, the "moon" in the title) landscape comprising pinnacles and valleys formed over thousands of years through erosion. There were various walking tracks through the landscape, with sharp drops off the edge - "Health and Safety" hasn't made it to Bolivia!

- A wander outside the notorious San Pedro Prison, as featured and exposed in "Marching Powder" (a great read if you haven't already read it). If you've seen the series Prison Break (the second series I think), the prison is like that. It is a society within itself - there are no guards in the prison, you have to buy your own cell and food, there are shops, restaurants, etc run by prisoners, and some of the purest cocaine in the country is also made inside! Some prisoners' family members live with them in the prison. A few years ago, tourists could discretely enter the prison for an unofficial tour by bribing the guards to let you in - the tour would be conducted by an inmate with a bodyguard or two as protection. You'd have to leave your passport with the guards. It was a case of "do you dare to enter" and would you live to tell the tale. Unfortunately, you can't get in now and even when trying to take photos of the entrance, we had to be discrete so the guards outside didn't catch us.

- The "Witches Market" - local women run stalls with "potions" for traditional remedies and various oddities such as llama foetuses. which locals bury under the porches of their new homes for luck and good fortune.

We had some leavers today and some new people. It was goodbye to Sarah, Adam and Kat and hello to Simon and Crystal from NZ and UK but both now living in UK, Peggy from Germany who it turns out is collecting "badges" from her travels around the world and lugs around a 30kg backpack containing such essential items as high-heeled shoes, coathangers and a portable make-up salon, and Mellisa, a trainee tour leader. In the evening, it was back to Ollie's for me, with a few of us partying till the early hours of the morning at a couple of clubs with some members of the Tucan overland truck tour.

On Sunday, it was time to leave La Paz for our next destination, Oruro, and then onto Uyuni for a visit to the salt flats. I had breakfast in a cafe - a bacon omelette and chips. Then we took taxis to the bus station at noon for the 1pm bus to Oruro, which turned out to be a very eventful journey. The bus took about an hour to get out of La Paz, with people getting on and off at various points, sometimes passengers, others just selling stuff. At one point, a few people were walking down the aisle selling fake DVDs (pornos). As they got off, Simon from our group noticed that his bag by his feet had gone, and another tourist near the back of the bus had put his bag on the overhead shelf and noticed that it had also gone. Another man dropped some money at the feet of Dan and Chips and tried to steal their bags as he picked it up. This was all a common scam on South American buses carrying tourists, where a group of people will work together to use any means of distraction to steal tourist bags. They got away with two this time. When we finally reached Oruro (the sort of town best seen when passing through it), some of our group had the misfortune to see the body of a woman who had been hit and dragged along the ground by another bus. After a couple of hours in Oruro to get some food, we caught the 7pm train to Uyuni, which unfortunately, would get into Uyuni at 2am if it was on time. More on that and Uyuni next time.
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