The first views of La Paz are breathtaking, square brick buildings of different sizes clinging to the canyon cliffs for as far as you can see! And it's massive! The city is arranged differently to any other city. Usually the wealthier residents live higher up so they get the great views but the altitude of La Paz (3660m) means everyone wants to live as low as possible.
on arrival at the bus terminal we took an official taxi from the small taxi arranging kiosk - Wassie had read about many taxi robbing scams and decided we should go official where we could.
Our hostel, Cruz de Las Andes, was in a good central location and a clean basic place with matrimonial bed and private baño. With only a few hours we needed to book for the road of death the next day (something Was has been super excited about), so we plotted our route to the nearest Gravity store about 7 blocks away and took in La Paz sights and sounds before booking.
We stopped at a nice chilled bar, Sol y Luna, on the way back and and read a guide brochure suggestion to avoid the Bol 2 (£0.20) burgers from the street stalls dotted around the city like the plague. Also not even to brush your teeth with the tap water as their water pipes are built along side their sewage pipes and are known to be corroded through!
Avoiding the cheap burgers, we went on a search for a late dinner - I was craving Thai or anything with a different flavour! We did find a good looking Thai place and settled in - what a mistake, slow service and terrible cold food. Better to stay local!
The next morning we did the road of death tour with Gravity, the first company to start cycle excursions. It was brilliant, but more on that is a separate post. After the cycle we headed out for a dinner, this time hopefully more luck.
Warren chose steak for dinner (think I wasn't the only one craving non Bolivian food!). I had a great strip steak an Warren had their speciality, steak flambéed in Jack Daniels. Both steaks were impressive but even more impressive was there was a safe looking salad bar although I still avoided the lettuce. And reasonable Argentinian red wine! Fab!
The next morning I hobbled together my Walking Tour of La Paz from the Lonely Planet, trip advisor, a city walking tour app that Was has downloaded and a decent looking tour's website. We started in the black market which was heaving on a Thurs morning. The market sells all sorts from fruit to toiletries to suits to fake goods. It's arranged in areas so one street will be toiletries, another menswear, another household things. One lady was selling bras and seemed to keep her stock on her - a good hundred bras on each arm! Street food too took on a new meaning with people sitting down in the middle of a packed walkway with a large bowl containing chicken, pork, bananas and a few items we couldn't identify all in the same bowl, but sold separately.
Warren was looking for a t shirt - the only person to pack too light. He had only packed four t shirts and one had been retired post amazon mud. On asking the price of the obviously fake Abercrombie and Armani Exchange t shirts we were shocked to discover they were 500 - 700 Bolivianos. (£50 - £70) We're not sure if this was the tourist price or if they're ripping off everyone but these shirts were obviously fake, the labels weren't quite rite, material wasn't great. Anyway Warren declined, he was just looking for a cheap t shirt. The popular fake brands were Hollister, Nike, Abercrombie and then the outdoor hiking brands. But the outdoor shops along the main road between the black market and witches market are at least honest about their goods being fake. There are large signs as you enter saying 'not authorised'. Northface is the most popular of the fake goods with Columbia not too far behind. Our Gravity guide told us about a legendary pair of trousers one of the guides had - a north face label on the outside with Columbia branding on the inside tag. You also spot the odd upside down branding label.
Following the black market we entered the witches market. They sell a lot of tourist things here, alpaca hats, textiles, jewellery. But dotted amongst the tourist shops are witches shops where they sell llama foetuses and other potions and lotions. Llamas are sacrificed for good luck in Bolivia and the llama foetus is a version of this. It will often be buried in the foundations of a new house for good luck. There are also lots of the miniature versions of what you hope for in the coming year here. Shops, money, groceries, cars as well as love and families.
From the witches market we headed downtown the the older colonial area of La Paz know as the museum district. We passed the Casa Murillo, the former home of Bolivia's most important freedom fighter who was hanged by the Spaniards.
Our tour then took us to Plaza Murillo, La Paz's main square which houses the Metropolitan Cathedral, the Palacio Quemado and the Congreso Nacional, all beautiful buildings. We took a seat on the steps with an ice cream and enjoyed the square for a while.
Our next stop was a viewpoint to overlook the incredible city. We had decided to head to xxxxx which was the top rated on tripadvisor.
We walked quite a way, through a park that was still in development and up to the lookout area where we had to pay to enter a kid's playground. You got a view over the city but not quite the one we were expecting. We headed for lunch at Eli's, a La Paz institution which genuinely was. It was packed, we only managed to get a table downstairs right at the back.
We were going to head to the San Pedro prison straight after lunch, but were pretty tired after a full on morning and decided to rather catch a movie in the cinema next door to Eli's. the luxury of having more time away is being able to take a break! We saw xxxxx (Gangster Squad) and were all prepared for it to be in Spanish but it surprisingly was in English with Spanish sub titles. Also discovered they have an interesting way of serving Coca Cola and popcorn. You only need one hand for carrying. See the picture attached. This should go worldwide!
After he movie we walked through to San Pedro prison. We had read 'Marching Powder' a book about an English drug smuggler who gets caught and imprisoned here. It's a crazy jail where the prisoners have to buy their own cells and self govern themselves. It didn't disappoint. On arriving to the prison square there were riot police outside and prisoners had climbed out on to the roof of the prison and were protesting. The main doors to the prison were open, but prisoners held back 3 meters inside by a large barred gate - prisoners were hanging on the gate and setting off fire grenades doused in fuel. We watched for a while. From what we were able to figure out, there is space for 7000 prisoners in Bolivia's jails and there are currently 13000 prisoners. In San Pedro the wives and children often live with he prisoners inside. The government was now evicting any families to make more space for prisoners and the current prisoners were protesting.
We went back passed Sol y Luna and ordered a Piqué Macho, mixed meat, potato and tomato meal we'd seen people eating in Copacabana - we shared this and it was brilliant, we'll be ordering more of these and making them at home.
The next day we did a bit of shopping (Warren needing to add some colour to his travel wardrobe bought one of those faux North Face soft shell jackets in the brightest orange he could find - at £20 he's probably got his money's worth out of it already) , had amazing coffee and cake at Angelito's cafe and caught up with some bits and pieces before hopping on our overnight bus to Potosi.
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