Living the high life

 
I travelled to La Paz on the 9am Cali Intentional bus from Arica. The ticket for this trip cost 10,000 pesos.

The journey to La Paz takes around eight hours and lunch was included in my ticket. During the journey immigration forms were handed out so I filled mine in, by now I don’t even need to check my passport number as I’ve written it so many times.
 
Just as I was about to put my pen away the woman opposite motioned to me, I thought she wanted to borrow the pen, but I was wrong she actually wanted me to fill out her forms for her and thrust them and her ID card at me. Filling out a form for myself is hard enough sometimes but to do it for someone else, who doesn’t speak the same language is a different kettle of fish.
 
I managed to complete most of the form using the info on the ID card, however there were some questions I wasn’t able to answer so I had to ask. What I hadn’t prepared myself for was not being able to understand the response, which happened a couple of times so I just wrote what I thought I heard and then got her to sign it.

We stopped at the Chile border post first to get stamped out then a bit further down the road we stopped at the Bolivian post. It was very quick and easy although I did have a moment when I realised the woman I helped hadn’t come back. Thankfully she did re-emerge - phew!

 

La Paz is the highest capital city in the world at 3,700 metres, having spent a week at sea level I’d resigned myself to the fact I’d probably have to go through the acclimatisation process all over again.
 
When the bus pulled into the bus station I was prepared for the usual chaos but it was surprisingly quiet, then I remembered it was Sunday. I walked from the bus station to Muzungu Hostel on Calle Illampu it took about 20 minutes. The walk was absolutely fine aside from the last five minutes, which were uphill and I really noticed the lack of oxygen. It didn’t help that my hostel was also up a set of stairs but thankfully my room was on the first floor.
 
Up until this point I’d been ok aside from a sore throat, which I’d been harbouring since Arica. However, as soon as I started unpacking the altitude hit me and my head was pounding. A lovely Swiss girl in the dorm let me have a sweet to help with it.

The next day I was feeling better and walked up the four flights of stairs to the breakfast room, which had amazing views across the city, by the time I reached the top I was ready for a sit down as I was breathing pretty heavily and probably could have given Darth Vader a run for his money.

 

The hostel is in the heart of the main tourist area where there are lots of shops all selling various fabrics, jumpers made from llama wool, handbags etc. I did have to restrain myself as it is very easy to get carried away.  I was also staying close to the Witches Market, where you can pick up various herbal remedies, talisman, charms and llama foetuses! The latter are used when building a new home and are buried in the foundations as a gift to Pachamama. I found it fascinating just wandering around looking at everything.
 
One of the main things I noticed in the city was the pollution in the streets from exhaust fumes, sometimes it was overwhelming. I also felt like I was taking my life into my own hands every time I crossed the road. I’ve been to Vietnam where it is pretty crazy but at least you know the traffic will move around you, here I was not so sure. The amount of times I saw a bumper just out the corner of my eye barely millimetres away from me and still moving.
 
While I was in La Paz I decided to try out the free walking tour by Red Cap Walking Tours. The tour meets in Plaza San Pedro every day at 11am. I got there a 10 minutes and early and kept an eye out for someone in a red cap but didn’t see anyone. Then I was approached by a guy in pretty normal clothes who asked if I was waiting for the tour. I said I was and he said he was the guide and it would start in a few minutes. Alarm bells started ringing and concerned he may not be a real guide I decided to see if anyone else turned up – power in numbers and all that. Soon enough there was quite a crowd of us so I decided to take a chance.
 

Outside San Pedro Prison

The tour started and what I hadn’t realised up until this point was the building on one side of the square is the notorious San Pedro Prison where a lot of drug traffickers, dealers, gang members and other criminals are imprisoned. The prison is like a city within a city. There are no guards inside the main prison and up until a few years ago prisoners’ families were able to live with them there. As with most things if you have money you can live quite comfortably and I have read that the most well off inmates have three storey properties with the more lavish including hot tubs!

 
The tour covered the area by my hostel so I was already fairly familiar with this part. By this point a lot of people had trailed off and left. We finished in Plaza Murillo, which is where the main governmental buildings are. I gave the guide a small tip as he hadn’t been as good as the guide in Buenos Aires and I was still sceptical. I looked up the Red Cap website when I got back and discovered they currently aren’t running free walking tours at the moment so it would seem the guy wasn’t legit after all.
 
Having had enough of the touristy part of town I wandered around Calle Rodriguez where there is a big fruit and veg market everyday and I also walked around the streets around Mercado Negro where you can buy pretty much anything. I walked down one street, which just had a lot of stalls all selling lightbulbs, then another hardware items etc.
 

Every Thursday and Sunday there is a big market in El Alto, which is a suburb at one of the highest points of La Paz, 4,150m and is a mini city in itself. To get to the right part of El Alto I took the teleferico (cable car), La Paz is one of the only cities in the world, which uses cable cars primarily as a form of public transport. There are three lines in the city with another three due to be opened this year. To get to the market you need to take the red line from Estacion Central to 16 de Julio. The journey costs three bolivianos and the views alone make it worth the trip.

 

Once at the top you step out from the station into the market. Being a Thursday it was busy but probably not as crowded as a Sunday, which was good. Pickpocketing is known to happen in the market so I kept a firm hand on my bag just in case. I wandered around and again this market had all sorts of products on sale from every kind of car part imaginable to a road just selling timber and other DIY type products. There were also rows of stalls piled high with clothes to rummage through and I ended up coming away with a couple of things for 20 Bolivianos.

There were, as I had hoped, stalls selling the colourful aguayo fabric, which is traditionally used by women to carry babies, food, market produce and anything else they might need on their backs. I loved the fabric and knowing what the prices were in the tourist market I wanted to see if I could get it cheaper here and I did. I came away with a large piece for 50 Bolivianos about half what I’d been quoted in the tourist shops.
 

On my last day in La Paz I visited the Coca Museum on Calle Linares, which tells the history of the leaf along with its links to cocaine. It was really interesting although if you don’t like reading I would give it a miss as there was a lot to take in. In the museum is also a café selling a range of coca products and I tried a coca hot chocolate and a coca cookie. Both were really nice although the drink was a little gritty towards the end.
 

La Paz is a very vibrant city and it is great for people watching. I particularly enjoyed just watching the cholitas go about their business. Cholitas are Aymara Indian women who wear traditional dress, which consists of a bowler hat, patterned shawl, blouse, a pollera (a very voluminous pleated skirt reaching the ankles) and flat shoes with a rounded toe. In the 16th century this style of dress was introduced by the Spanish, who forced the indigenous population to wear the typical European clothing of the era. Today, women continue to wear the typcial clothing daily in both rural and urban areas.

 

In the more touristy areas it can be difficult to find food that doesn’t cost similar to that back in the UK, however one of my top tips especially if you just want a quick snack is to go to Mercado Lanza, which is just off Plaza Mayor in the centre. On the top floor of the market are row upon row of small cafés. The cafés contain a small table and bench. On the other side of the table is the kitchen, where place your order.
 
On one occasion I went with three other people and three hot drinks and two fried egg rolls cost less than £1! Alternatively, there are some really great local eateries tucked away on the main streets and they often have a menu del dia – two courses for a set price. I discovered an amazing veggie restaurant on Calle Murillo and had the set menu for the equivalent of £1.50. The place was also packed with locals.

I spent four days in La Paz and this was more than enough to see the main sites and get a flavour for the city.