Free Wisdom Online: La Paz

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After a trip to the Salar and some more pizza in the company of fellow
backpackers, we got onto a bus to La Paz.  The 10-12 hour ride was
worth than we hoped but not as bad as we feared.  It took us a bit
more effort to find a hotel in La Paz than in any other place since
the cheaper places we started with were either dirty themselves or in
dirty neighborhoods.  We ended up finding a place that was described
in Lonely Planet as "sparkling clean" and headed there, where we
settled for US$16 per day for a room with shared bathroom.  But hey,
at least that bathroom was clean.  (Our other options included $10 for
a room with a dirty private bathroom.)  We spent two days in La Paz,
minus some time for to catch up on sleep after a night on the bus and
a half day for a trip to Tiwanaku.

La Paz is an interesting city, though we had to disagree with Lonely
Planet's claim that La Paz "in terms of spectacular setting, is in the
same scenic league as Rio de Janeiro, Cape Town, San Francisco and
Hong Kong."  I haven't been to Cape Town and Hong Kong, but Rio and
San Francisco are definitely in a different "scenic league."  The
natural setting is perhaps there (La Paz is located in a "bowl" in the
midst of beautiful mountains), but the city completely fails to make
good use of them.  The beautiful Illimani peak is only rarely visible
through the forest of rather ugly buildings.

<~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
2005-12-12-d-pachamama/20051212_072_2494 Views from El Alto
2005-12-11-la-paz/20051211_018_1155 Llama fetuses, etc.
2005-12-11-la-paz/20051211_020_3709 Selling alcohol
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
2005-12-11-la-paz/20051211_017_4464 More of the Witch's Market
2005-12-12-e-la-paz/20051212_083_1197 Church detail
2005-12-12-e-la-paz/20051212_081_9154 Soldiers
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
2005-12-11-la-paz/20051211_003_4051
2005-12-11-la-paz/20051211_011_8827
2005-12-12-e-la-paz/20051212_080_6326
2005-12-11-la-paz/20051211_006_1944 Soldiers
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~>

The three things I found most memorable about La Paz were the
soldiers, the Witch's Market and the 10 litre containers of "puro."
Perhaps we were there on a special day, but throughout our visit the
city teamed with soldiers in red historic uniform.  One might think
that given it's army's past performance (they lost every single war
they fought and overthrew almost every democratic government even
elected), Bolivia would just get rid of army a la Costa Rica.
Instead, however, the military spirit still runs strong, even now when
the country is no longer run by the generals.

The Witch's Market is a little market near downtown La Paz that sells
the strangest ingredients for sorcery and sacrificial offerings.  By
far the strangest of those are bundles of dried llama fetuses.  Not
wanting to get a curse from the witches, I avoided taking close-up
shots of their wares, but of one of the pictures does show clearly
stacks of llama fetuses.  No, we didn't buy any.

The last picture in the first row shows the third most memorable thing
about La Paz - large containers of alcohol.  From left to right, the
containers say: "Singani especial de camargo" (a local drink), "Puro
de camargo" (95% alcohol), "Vodk", then two containers of "Ron" and
two more containers of Singani.  Quite a full bar.  To be fair to
Bolivia, however, I rarely saw drunk people in the streets, so apart
from this one alcohol counter it hardly seemed like a land of
alcoholics.

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