Despite there not being an overwhelming number of sights to see/activities to undertake in La Paz, like many people journeying around South America I got locked in the vortex of this city for a little longer than anticipated. During my time there I witnessed a lot of competitive activity; from the elections for the new Mayor of La Paz, to wrestling matches, to a pool tournament in my hostel. Couple this with an effort at learning Spanish, a reunion with my ex-boyfriend and a chance encounter with an old travel buddy, a run-in with the police and a bike ride down "The World's Most Dangerous Road" and you have rather an eventful two and a half weeks in a city at very high altitude!

I had decided that La Paz would be the place where I was going to finally try and improve my Spanish, and to find someone to help me build on the self-teaching that has been going on the past few months as I am sick of telling stories in the present tense and probably saying quite a few things wrong. Therefore I sought out someone to help me rather than just using the internet. I found a great guy called Juan through a mutual friend, and he proved to be invaluable in teaching me all about life in La Paz, all in Spanish.

After arriving pretty early in the morning I headed straight for what would be my first hostel in La Paz – Wild Rover. This was a very gringoey (yes, that really is a word I promise) party hostel; the likes of which I normally avoid like the plague and until now I have not stayed in on this trip. However, this was where Rees recommended me to stay and was going to meet me in a couple of days so I thought I'd give it a whirl. Things turned out well when I bumped into Maaike who was heading to stay there too... I had no idea she was in the area so it was a really nice surprise to see her there. Weirder still she was walking with Oron who I had left just that morning as we were going to different hostels, but he had ended up staying in Wild Rover too due to lack of space at his desired hostel. However sadly Maaike had to leave pretty soon and I ended up exchanging her for Rees as they met briefly in the handover.

Once Rees had arrived we went and booked ourselves a day trip cycling down "The World's Most Dangerous Road" aka "Death Road" which also has the less exciting official name of "North Yungas Road". This was something I had definitely been looking forward to in Bolivia and it was nice to have a familiar face to go with. Of the many companies that offer this trip we decided to go with Vertigo as they impressed us the most. I was expecting this to be an absolutely terrifying bike ride, but it was actually not all that scary and I was more impressed with the beautiful views than any kind of terror-factor, although I was not impressed by the immense amounts of mossie bites I managed to pick up. I remember thinking that it would be very hard to die on this road these days as there is now another road providing the same A to B that is open which most of the traffic uses, therefore removing the risk of oncoming trucks taking you out/forcing you over the edge. However, as I am rather behind in my blog writing, I am able to report here that one Israeli girl managed to die on this trip two weeks to the day after we did it (http://www.jpost.com/Israel/Article.aspx?id=172777), so I guess it still poses some kind of danger and can justify keeping its fancy name afterall.

To begin with we cycled down a nice paved section of road so that everyone could get used to their bikes, whilst the guides could spot the mongs that may cause problems later on. There were three distinct groups that could be found easily within minutes of setting out: (1) the knob-head show offs - all young males with a point(less) to prove during a competition of who can annoy the rest of the group the most; (2) the inconceivably slow girls who managed to have a domino-style crash even on the paved road - mostly English gap-yah types; and finally (3) the normal people who could easily take on any of group 1 in a race, but felt no need to get in anyone's way or behave like a complete tool. I'll leave you to decide which group I would place myself and Rees in.

Once the nice paved road came to an end, the bikes were loaded back onto the top of the minibuses whilst we had to go and pay a bit of extra cash for some entry fee or another. Then we were transported along the short(ish) stretch of uphill road leading to the start of the narrower, rougher-surfaced and muddier "Death Road". We weren't even given the option to cycle this little stretch, it is just assumed that tourists don't like cycling unless its all downhill. So, there we were – about to take on the World's Most Dangerous Road – surrounded by a bunch of other tourists who seemed to pose a bigger risk of causing an accident than the road itself, which did not look half as bad as I was expecting… but I was still thankful that we had gone with a company that supplies bikes that are equipped with fully-functioning brakes and secure wheels.

The views from the road were really beautiful, although taking too-close-a-look could've lead to a nasty accident as the sheer drop off the side of the road was about 600m; the same could be said for taking photos whilst moving. I was expecting to maybe see more wrecks from vehicle accidents of yesteryear, or more memorials for people who had contributed to this road earning its name. However I noticed just two or three memorials, each bearing the Star of David – it does always seem to be the Israelis that keep the stats up with things like this. Maybe it's just because there are more of them than any other nationality, or maybe it's just because they opt for the cheapest company most of the time and therefore are not blessed with brakes etc… who knows. I even heard that Gravity (the most expensive company, but with the best safety record) refuse to take Israelis on the rare occasion that they seek to spend a little extra on their activities, but I have no idea whether this is actually true.

About half way down "Death Road" we stopped for lunch. At this point it had started to get a little warmer as we were now at a much lower altitude and the day had progressed, this meant that the mossies were out and about on the warpath. We rode through streams and under waterfalls along the continual bumpy surface and winding route until we reached the end of the road. Once again we were loaded into the minibuses and driven slightly uphill to a hostel in the destination village of Coroico. Here we had some food and a much-needed shower before relaxing by the pool ahead of a long and windy drive back to La Paz along the same 64km (40 mile) road we had just cycled, only this time it was in the dark and we had no control over the vehicle we were in!

The next day Rees had to leave, which was a shame as we were actually getting on pretty well. As I was back on my lonesome I decided to move hostels after the super-annoying staff at Wild Rover had moved us into the most undesirable dorm room between the very noisy kitchen and the even noisier bar. My next hostel (Hostal Repulica) was just over the road and was much more quiet and civilized – not a bunk bed in sight! The perfect place to stay as I tried to get into the mood for learning.

During my first "lesson", Juan tried to assess my level of Spanish through having various vague conversations with me. The result of which was that I was "Intermediate" in both my writing and speaking skills, leaving me feeling very pleased with myself, but also that he was being very kind. As he was just a friend that I was learning from, rather than any kind of formal classes, it was up to me to decide how to progress. First things first I wanted to learn the past tense so that I could talk a little less like a child. Once this was done I told Juan all about the "Cholita's Wrestling" which had been the previous night's entertainment…

Each and every Sunday evening there is a wrestling event which is more pantomime and fake than any WWF/WCW stuff I saw as a kid, but nowhere near as professional. However, this show does have something that I never saw as a child – Cholitas. These are the indigenous Aymara-speaking women of Bolivia who dress day-to-day in their traditional clothing of long pleated skirt, tights, shawl/apron and bowler hat, with the seemingly compulsory two long plaits in their hair. This novelty was by far the best thing about the show, although the women didn't come on until the end meaning that we had to sit through countless matches of men in silly costumes including their super-cool wrestling masks, with each match following the same "storyline" which became tiresome very quickly. When the Cholitas finally made an appearance it was always against a man and it was a fantastic display of domestic violence as the referee would join in to help vicitmise her as much as possible until somehow she would end up victorious.

As predictable and monotonous as the evening became, I was glad that I sat through all of the "fights" and stayed until the end. Once all of the wrestlers had made their exits, all the kids (plus one big blonde kid who had previously bought herself an amazing wrestling mask) piled into the ring! You may call me immature, but I just couldn't resist the temptation (for a change). Despite having lived in La Paz for most of his life, Juan had not even heard of this wonderful event, but he was definitely keen to go and see it for himself once he had listened to my amazing story in terribly broken Spanish.


On my first day hanging out with Juan, we went to the viewpoint in the centre of La Paz and I got to see how far the city expands after a nice walk up a hill that is already at altitude. Unfortunately I do not have any photos of this as I did not have the foresight to take my camera out with me that day. Nor do I have any pictures from the outing on my second day when we went to see the recently completed Muriel of 200 key/influential figures of La Paz. This had been created by one man over three months, and contained various actual individuals as well as someone to represent groups such as Cholitas and the zebras (or rather people dressed as zebras) that are employed by the city to help out pedestrians at road crossings. I even learnt that due to a recently-opened plaza, the whole traffic flow in one area of La Paz had been changed and therefore a massive scheme to encourage people to volunteer as a zebra for the day had been set up. This was something that I seriously considered, but I did not do as there was a two day training programme involved. In addition to the zebras they also have people dressed up as donkeys, whose job it is to knock on the window of cars that stop on the pedestrian crossing thus causing an obstruction – fantastic!

The week that I was hanging out with Juan was a pretty busy one in La Paz. First of all it was Semana Santa (Easter Week) which meant that the preceding Sunday the streets were filled with people making and selling various bits and pieces from palm leaves. However it was not only Semana Santa, but also the week running up to the local elections for Mayor. Although I had been given various flyers for the two main candidates, I was not really in tune with the local politics until I got Juan to educate me a little more. One of the main candidates for Mayor was Eli, a woman representing the party to which the much-loved president Evo Morales belongs (MAS). The other was Luis who represented MSM ("Movimiento Sin Miedo" – fearless party), which was named after a children's book called "Juan sin miedo" (a translated fairy tale by the Brothers Grimm), as the party-founder's name was Juan. Although I knew very little about either of their policies, I fancied Luis for the win as he had a great slogan: "Lucho por La Paz" – literally "I fight for La Paz", but Lucho is also another name for Luis… quite clever for Bolivia. That and the fact that in his campaign photo he looked like he would murder you if you did not vote for him.

A couple of rules that they have in Bolivia ahead of the elections is a 48-hour ban on any campaigning, and also a ban on alcohol over the same time frame. For this reason I decided to move to another gringo party hostel – Loki. Obviously I cannot disclose whether or not they continued to open their bar throughout the ban, but there was certainly a rule that meant no non-guests would be allowed into the hostel over the weekend, so I needed to get myself guest-status if I wanted to have any fun. The elections were being held on Easter Sunday, so these bans came into effect on Good Friday, which was also a public holiday and therefore there were no more Spanish lessons for me. Needless to say, Thursday night was a pretty big one for most of the locals (including Juan).

As it was my last day with him we also had to celebrate my amazing achievements… and what better way to do so than drinking in the streets until midnight with his best friend Pablo? In Bolivia there are three different beers: Autentica, Paceña and Bock – the first two of which are really weak and taste like bad American beer, whereas Bock has a bit more strength and therefore flavour. I was given the choice of what we were going to drink, so clearly I chose Bock. However I think that the boys were used to drinking something a little less strong as they seemed to get very drunk very quickly whilst I remained relatively sober. At around 10pm three policemen on motorbikes pulled up and demanded to see the contents of my bag (but expressed no interest in Juan’s). All I had in there was a notebook filled with scribblings in horrendous Spanish, as I always keep my purse safely tucked in my bra; they seemed disappointed with this and asked me a few pointless questions before driving away.

Once it started to approach midnight (and therefore Friday's ban), we had to stop drinking. As it was Juan’s Dad’s birthday they were having a little party at their house, so we went there as it was just up the road from my new hostel. After a couple of hours of trying to have proper conversations in Spanish with various members of his family I made my excuses and left. Juan insisted on walking me back despite my assurances that I was perfectly capable of walking half a kilometer alone, even at 2.00am on the big bad streets of La Paz. After you read what came next, you will agree with me that I bet he wishes he had just let me take my chances alone…

Due to the restriction on any outsiders entering the hostel I had to say my thank yous and goodbye to Juan on the street outside. Loki hostel is conveniently located just over the road from the local police station, therefore it didn't take them long to mosey on over and start investigating our sobriety levels. We explained that we had not had anything to drink since before midnight, but they took a disliking to Juan for some reason and dragged him away from me by his hair and over the road to the station. He was shouting for them to let go of him and so they sprayed him in the face with some kind of tear gas. Obviously (being the moron that I am) I then ran over to try and save the day. They threw him in the back of a truck so they could take him to prison, so I climbed in too so they didn't drive away until we had talked to them... one last hope that there was actually some kind of fairness involved in being arrested in La Paz. After talking to them for a few minutes they started to ask me to get out of the truck, unless of course I fancied spending the night in prison too. They even actually asked me (in Spanish of course) "do you want to spend the night in prison too?" - nice that as a foreigner you're given that choice. I knew they wouldn't throw a foreigner who hadn't broken the law into prison or they would get themselves in all kinds of trouble, so I stayed to try and help Juan. However it wasn't too much trouble for one of the policemen to pick me up and put me back in the road - I was sensible enough not to fight him and get thrown in prison for assaulting a police officer! Then they drove off and left me to go back to the safety and comfort of my hostel where I was met by the hostel's angry security guards before I went to bed still fuming at the complete injustice of it all. The following day I met up with Juan just to see how he was doing. Normally a very well-behaved young man, he said that it was the worst night of his life and couldn't apologise to me enough for what had happened. All I could say was that it wasn't half as bad for me as it was for him and then try to change the subject to sometihng a little more positive. I also got to visit one of the local polling stations for the election as he went to cast his vote.

Over the rest of the weekend/alcohol ban period I kept a much lower profile, choosing to spend my time improving my skills around the pool table in the hostel. We managed to develop quite a tight-knit bunch of eight of us who rarely left the table, even having most meals at the hostel so we could continue to play. Inevitably the group was me and seven guys, and when we were playing doubles it always seemed like I was the last one in the class to be picked! I got much better though, and on a good day I could even win at singles so I was a happy girl. Most of us were English, we just had one token Frenchman who was the nicest French guy I have ever met, I think it helped that he looked like Jesus. On Sunday night, amongst the shusshing by the bar manager in the bar that may or may not have been open for alcohol business, Jesus organised a hostel-wide pool doubles tournament. He was partnered by Mark, with the two of them being the best players from our incestuous pool circle, which left Tom (Mark's gigantic friend/travel buddy) to be my partner and the other half of our imaginatively named team "David and Goliath". I made some unbelievably great shots in our first round match against the most competitive (and cheating) Israeli couple, and I am pleased to report that we got further in the tournament than anyone else who had spent the previous two days in training - we were only beaten by the team that went on to win; Goliath really is a great player!

Before leaving La Paz I managed to squeeze in a quick tourist visit to Plaza Murillo and the governmental buildings in the area, as well as a little walk around the nearby history-filled streets. So it wasn't all drinking, dancing and having fun... but if that is what you're into then La Paz is the perfect place for it. Oh, and in case you were wondering, Eli won the election.