Breathtaking La Paz (in more ways than one)

Guide books have described the impact of ones first sight of the city of La Paz as you approach from the plains (El Alto) and first glimpse the city's buildings clinging to the side of the canyon and spilling down into the valley below. That first glimps is every bit as breathtaking as it is suggested. It was late afternoon as this sight came into view for us and that golden light made the view all the better.

We were fortunate that our accommodation was only a short walk from the bus station and we had no difficulty finding it and checking in. The hostel (Artty's) has been described as an oasis, and behind the unobtrusive security door on the busy street you go upstairs to a very quiet and peaceful environment.

We were given a map and directions to a nearby street that contains numerous dining establishments so that we might procure some tasty commestibles for our nourishment. Just before we reached said street we were side-tracked by a little night market which we deemed worthy of a closer look. We then started towards the restaurant area but decided we didn't feel up to a full-on dining experience tonight (still feeling sleep deprived after last night's cacophony in Copacabana) so we just doubled back to one of the Bolivian fast food type outlets we had seen near the night markets. It wasn't gourmet food by ant means but it was enough for the occasion.

After a good night's sleep, we enjoyed another nice complementary breakfast. While I managed to complete the web checkin for tomorrow morning's flight to Uyuni, Laura delivered a bag of clothing in urgent need of cleaning to a nearby laundry . Laura reported that the look on the face of the lady at the laundry suggested that she seriously considered a surcharge!



Mural on side of shopping centre

To start the day's explorations we set off for the San Francisco church, along the way passing through a "shopping centre" that consisted of hundreds of little shops not much bigger than a market stall - many of them catering to people having breakfast it seemed. Once we reached the church we realised that we had forgotten to bring the guide book with us so Laura returned to the hostel to fetch it while I perused the nearby shops and stalls to try and gauge our prospects of finding a lizard.

When Laura returned we decided not to bother with a tour of the church, since although it was supposed to include a view of the city from the roof it didn't seem likely that we would be able to see much with the number of tall buildings in the vicinity. Instead we continued to do a proper explore of the shops and eateries along Sagamaga street - noting in the process a suitable slightly up market establishment that we decided would be appropriate for tonight's planned "pre-birthday" dinner. Our sightseeing included the famous Witch's Market, and although they were not actually that big, there were a few gruesome things on display like dried bat carcasses.

A view of La Paz with the mountains as a backdrop

Next we crossed back over the footbridge to the site of the previous evening's night markets, now just a regular street. This took us to Plaza Pedro D Murillo which is surrounded by a number of noteable public buildings. One of these is the Presidential Palace which still shows some bullet marks on its facade from a previous military coup. After a quick lunch we set off to tackle the climb to a lookout in the San Juan district, which had been recommended to us by the hostel staff. The latter part of the climb was steep enough to have had us puffing at the best of times, but at an altitude of nearly 4,000m it was particularly hard work. The end result was definitely worth it though because the panoramic view of La Paz and the surrounding mountains was positively dazzling and had us lingering a while just to take it all in. It is a pity I hadn't brought my tripod to shoot a proper panorama, but I tried doing one hand held and will just have to hope it works out.

We retraced our climb and continued on to a small square, close to which was the Museo del Litoral, about the war in which Bolivia lost its Pacific coast to Chile in the 1880s, that we would really have liked to see. Unfortunately, as we suspected, it is closed on Mondays. We were still able to wander down the little cobblestoned laneway where this museum and number of other buildings of historical significance have been beautifully maintained. And quite fortuitous that we did so as from the laneway Laura spotted a most beautiful woodwork lizard on display on the back wall of a little craft shop we were passing. At this rate our front wall at home will soon be full!

One of the Zebras in action

It was not much further back to our hostel where we put our feet up for a while before heading out to the post office further down Prado (the main thoroughfare). On the way we saw one of the most surprising and entaining things we have yet seen on this trip. At a marked pedestrian crossing flanked by traffic lights there were two people dressed in zebra costumes. Whenever the lights stopped the traffic they would skip out onto the crossing and dance around, waving their black & white stripped flags to encourage people to cross safely. As the lights changed to green they would waltz back to the side of the road and wave the traffic off as though it were the start of a car race.

You would think it would be a good idea for any post office to have stamps in the denomination required for a basic item like a postcard. No such luck here though, with the postage for our postcards to both Australia and Canada requiring two stamps each. And they were two BIG stamps, that in some cases encroached on the text we had written on the cards.

From the post office it was back to Sagamaga street so that I could do some serious hat shopping to replace the replacement hat I had managed to lose between Puno & Copacabana. (I am sure that I managed to get a sunburnt scalp during our hike on Isla del Sol and the boat back therefrom). With that done we went to the restaurant we had spotted earlier today for the special pre-birthday dinner for Laura's birthday tomorrow. (We don't expect to find any fancy restaurants on the Solar de Uyuni!). Laura celebrated by tucking into an Argentine Fillet Mignon, which although not as mouth watering as the one we had while actually in Argentina, was nevertheless very nice. The cheesecake that followed for dessert was of course not up to my home-made standard but also went down very well.

All that remained afterwards from our all too brief sojourn in La Paz was to collect our clean laundry and try to get to bed as early as possible to cope with tomorrow's early start to catch our 6:50am flight to Uyuni.