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The border crossing into Bolivia was very easy if not somewhat confusing on both sides immigration involved going into the police station first and then into the immigration office before walking up a hill and over the border and doing the same on the other side where the empty bus would meet us.
Stamp in passport, bundled back onto the bus we continued our journey to Copacabana (in no way similar to the beach in Rio) and changed buses for the last leg to La Paz the soundtrack to which I chose the Godskitchen 2009 albums to keep me entertained. After a couple of hours we were ushered off the bus on to a pier - if we had been confused by the border crossing (which we had obviously been prepared for) we were at a loss at what was going on here. Following the crowds march along to the left of the pier and leaving the bus behind they started lining up to buy tickets for a boat across the water as we saw our coach drive out on to the shoddiest wooden floatation device you have ever seen in your life - it could not even be described as a boat. As it turns out this floatation device is not safe enough to carry us all onboard the bus so persons are expected to buy a (very cheap) ticket across the water. Thankfully we had both exchanged some remaining notes into bolivianos at the border and not taken them out of the ATM in La Paz otherwise we would have been quite quite screwed. But a 5 minute jaunt across the water in utter darkness had us awake and after watching the bus precariously float across the black water (I'm positive there must be tens of coaches lining the bottom of the lake) we were back on board for the last couple of hours to La Paz. And La Paz looked awesome on the way in, it lies in between a number of valleys that encircle it making it appear that its been built in a large crater, but means you get an awesome view of the entire city on the way in all the better for it at night where its all prettily lit up - doesn't everywhere look nicer at night? At the bus station the taxi drivers were all asking us to go to Loki Hostel which is where we had our reservation anyway (being part of the chain of hostels we had stayed in in Cusco) and so hopped in the first reasonably priced one and headed off thankful the taxi driver knew where he was going (as opposed to those in Puno). At Loki we checked in without incident although noted what could only be described as another set of death steps required to reach the hostel from the city centre, but put that thought to the back of my mind for the time being and went to the bar to enjoy the tab system we had grown so accustomed to in Cusco.
The next morning we started with a rousing Loki breakfast at a bargainous price and wandered into town towards Plaza San Francisco enjoying the weather and taking in the markets before going in search of the witches market, which was far far more tame than I had expected. Hogwarts has clearly had input on my expectations.
We loaded up on some toiletries and other necessities we'd been running out of and took it easy for the rest of the day, still semi-recovering from The Inca Trail and now at even more ridiculous altitude - its 3660m above sea level! However the altitude short of the breathlessness involved in the death steps appeared to have subsided and my ability to drink had returned once more! So we started the night in the hostel bar armed with the tab! Whilst the altitude wasn't resulting in severe vomiting anymore it was certainly heightening the alcoholic effect of each drink and a few beers later I was quite buzzed. We bumped into some of the girls who had been in our dorm in the Cusco Loki and headed out to Ram Jams together where there was an infusion of latin, traditional and dance music - it was good, but pretty different. It was however a complete sweat fest, air conditioning was not something this club was familiar with so I took a break outside and started talking with a girl from Newcastle who was pretty good friends with Flic (Harris) she was a good laugh and once cooled down headed back in to dance with her. Come closing time they started playing really bad ballads to get everyone out which we found an utterly hilarious method of getting people to leave. We then moved on to a place called Route 36. A place known to all backpackers who have passed through the region. It is quite literally a crack den. Tourists only it would appear by the number of locals trying to get in and with a locked door policy ie you can only leave when they're ready for you to leave, which initially seemed like the most stupid thing in the history of time. The club also had a red lighted room that we congregated in briefly before coming to the unanimous design this room was probaly designed for lusty couples slash full blown coke induced orgies and quickly made our exit for downstairs again. The friend of Flics got involved in a game of beat the pinata, where she utterly anhilated the whole thing before anyone else even had the chance to play and won herself a giant bag of cocaine - utterly ludicrous I know but that pretty much summarised the place. Not in the mood for crack at the crack of dawn Lucy and I continued on the beers and left just before 6 easing ourselves into bed as people were getting up to catch early buses out of the city.
The 19th was largely written off by the long night before and was spent blatantly abusing the tab in the bar on vast varieties and quanities of food and fruit beverages. We set up shop in the movie room and watched Superbad (the first time I had actually sucessfully wached the whole movie all the way through) and Mamma Mia! (which I had obviously seen a s*** load of times and knew all the words to, much to Lucy's disgust). We had a nice big "Irish" roast for dinner and it was AMAZING I wanted another one, was reminiscent of an Osbourne's roast and soo juicy with lots of potatoes and veg, not quite up to Pete's mother's standards, but amazing all the same. There was some random guy off his face on drugs (coke presumably) that kept TRYING to subtley steal this girls food, but did it so slowly and obviously that we would just sit and watch him steal her food whilst she was looking at him directly in the face. We then enjoyed a few drinks being in the bar already seated and with a game of cards getting started between those of us who had been eating together. We went to go get ready for clubbing and while Lucy went for a shower I decided to lie down and have a power nap whilst I waited, exhausted by the back-to-back excitement of the days events. Alas I fell asleep and my power nap descended into full blown crankiness when Lucy reappeared and was told to shove it. She did not take to this, so I went and dutifully showered before returning to my bed and falling asleep again on the promise that Lucy would go get hammered in the bar whilst I had a bit more of a nap and I'd be ready to leave when they were heading out to a club... well that was obviously never going to happen, Lucy knew this too, and so an hour later when she reappeared for the third time I was in my underwear, but little else and fast asleep so she headed off out with the Cusco girls and went clubbing themselves, whilst I dreamt of roast dinners.
The next day was another one of leisure since Lucy was obviously nursing another hangover and I was still kinda sleepy in the way you can only be tired when you've slept too much and have kind of forgotten what conciousness is like and how bright the bloody sun is outside. We aimlessly walked about town, headed up to Mercado Negro, up past the Witches Market and was about as disappointed with it as we had been the Witches. When I think black market I think slightly seedy area offering a variety of luxury and expensive goods at bargain basement prices, men with rolexes in their jackets, scatterings of drugs (although in fairness there are drugs everywhere in La Paz), the Black Market in my mind is a place where you can get anything you want cheaply. This was a reasonably clean, wide street consisting of largely electronic stores. The only thing that could possibly be described as 'black' about it were the pirate DVD stalls outside lining the street from which Lucy bought Benjamin Button, 7 pounds and a few others. Disappointed we got in a taxi and haggled down a price from the ludicrous to the reasonable and headed off to Plaza Bolivia. The plaza itself is highly unremarkable, but being just down from the university was our first sighting of young Bolivian students, mostly boys hanging about and blatantly flirting with a group of girls, showing off a bit with a bit of mock fighting amongst them at one point, naturally. We sunbathed in the plaza, listening to our iPods and people-watching the day away before feeling suitably stared at a few hours later and heading back towards the hostel and another night out. We were looking for a large club who's name temporarily escapes me, but after being dropped off by a taxi driver who clearly had no idea where he was going and then, entirely by accident falling in front of its doors, found it to be utterly deserted. In possession of a map we discerned the bar the hostel had recommended for the night was nearby and whilst the map had proven to be of no use to us when looking for this club we turned on our heels in search of the bar and found it almost immediately down the road. This cool little bar, the Brass Monkey, was a lot more busy than the club had been, and less cavernous and more intimate had a lot more atmosphere about it. You were snaking between people to get to the bar, fighting for seats, having conversations with the random people sitting next to you for no apparent reason other than alcohol, this was what drinking was all about. The rest of the night is a haze of conversations with half the bar, befriending a couple of a previously British owned, annoymous or forgotten country and an absolutly hilarious Canadian Zac Effron lookalike, who was determined that he be allowed first to pour his own drinks and second be allowed to DJ since the bars attempts were not to his own standard (this could be quite possible given the bars music tastes were a convoluted and eclectic mix of everything and all poorly mixed with one another - it was something you either took as different and quirky and suiting to such an intimate backpacker bar OR just plain crap), there was also something I seem to recall involving a hat, but it is but a memory of a dream to me now. One thing I know he didn't take to was Lucy telling him he looked like Zac Effron, which from a woman who has Mr High School Musical's posters on her wall is nothing but a compliment. It was an earlyish night by South American standards getting back into the hostel around 4am, but craving food of any description and praying for a Munchies to apparate out of nowhere, alas no such occurence manifested and we were forced to go to bed hungry and counting down the minutes til breakfast might start.
The next morning after some breakfast we sorted out our bus ticket from the Loki travel agency for the next morning, horrified to learn of its early departure, but with little other choice than to book it and headed along the now familiar roads to Plaza San Francisco to buy Petey a Llama hat, knowing of his love for the animals (the result of a fixation with the Emperors New Groove) and picked him out a nice one that I could imagine him wearing about the office in the Union. I was going to post it from the post office there and then, but the post office had the look about it of the Black Market I had previously been imagining and I envisioned my newly purchased llama hat never making it out of the post office intact let alone the country to Petey. So I decided to hang onto it until in the safer postal offices of New Zealand. We spent the afternoon watching The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, which is an awesome film. The special effects are ridiculously good and realistic and towards the end you wonder how the hell they managed to make Brad Pitt look like he did 20 years ago. Definately deserving of the SFX oscar.
Leaving early the next morning we had to check out before 9pm when reception closed. This is always an unerving experience as I'm sure anyone in the possession of a tab for 5 days can attest to, in Cusco we literally had no idea what to expect and Lucy's reaction had been to laugh in the woman's face, but when given my figure it was blatantly wrong and investigation into the items on the tab showed a number of drinks I would not touch with a barge pole - expensive bottled beers? When the vodka was dirt cheap? Erm no. I told them where they could shove such items and was politely asked to return at 9pm when they were closing so she could speak with her manager. I politely told her that regardless of her managers thoughts on the matter I would not be paying for things I had not purchased and that there had been another Andrew in our room for a few days and that perhaps the bar staff were idiots. So we left her to talk to her manager and went back up towards San Francisco for a tasty Indian meal. Alas the Lonely Planet recommended Indian restaurant we had planned on going too was literally packed to the rafters and the staff were being pretty rude when we asked how long we might have to wait for a table, I think the concept of waiting for a table is perhaps lost in La Paz, but we found another good looking and significantly cheaper Indian up the hill and whilst it was a bit out the way down a random walkway and in what appeared to be a residential courtyard the restaurant was very poshly decorated and seemed popular with a couple of locals and some other backpackers so we took a seat and ordered. The food was amazing - and I realise a lot of this entry has been regarding the amazingness of the food - but I got a chicken tikka massala orientated curry with some rice, but you also got soup and a range of small odd tasty starters although we were rather unsure as to a number of the dishes, which all came out together on a massive tray. Having never been to India I cannot comment on authentic Indian cuisine, but this was ofa type I had never before had and it was delicious.
We returned to the hostel and the manager had decided that given the other Andrew's almost empty tab that the bartenders had most likely not been paying much attention with charging drinks to my account, she then added how he however had already checked out and left and I could see an intention to suggest I pay for these drinks anyway so cut her off before she even had the chance to suggest such a thing an paid the amount I intended to pay for the drinks I had and went upstairs to the bar to celebrate one of the girls we had met birthday. Whilst she was getting changed for a night out all her travel buddies had got balloons and streamers, bought a cake from across the road and found candles. It was really rather spectacular, I made a point of teasing Lucy about how I couldn't remember any cake on my birthday in Cusco, but in fairness I had spent a lot of it vomitting and probably wouldnt have been able to keep it down anyway. We had a few drinks then headed for an early night around 10pm since we were gonna have to be getting up at stupid o clock the next morning and swiftly and soundly and stuffed full of Indian fell asleep.
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