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La Paz for New Year
We travelled by bus from Copacabana to La Paz the day before New Years Eve which took around 4 hours and went surprisingly smoothly aside from the stop where we had to get on a little speed boat across a river whilst our bus and bags got on an old rickety ferry across and met us on the other side (photos under Copacabana) nothing surprises us anymore though and we had a giggle with Erica and Maarten!
When we took our first glimpse of the city it looked amazing, a huge city with buildings that clung to the sides of the canyon and we could see the snowy Mt Illamani in the background...spectacular! We immediately felt high altitude symptons though as La Paz is 3660m above sea level we got the usual head achy, lethergic and shortness of breath that we'd felt in other high cities.
We'd booked into a little guesthouse for 5 nights so we got off the bus and took a taxi straight there, rung the door bell but nobody answered, we waited and waited but still no joy so we had to resort to getting back in a taxi which took us all around the city searching for a bed. It was at least two hours later that we managed to find somewhere...phew what a relief we were really starting to worry!!
We spent New Years eve having some hearty english food in a pub called Olivers Travels that done a great steak and ale pie with mash followed by a few glasses of wine so it was a very quiet one. We made sure we raised a glass at midnight uk time too!!
It didn't take us long to realise that La Paz just wasn't for us, we found the people to be rude and aggressive. We had incidents where beggers spat at us and kids grabbed hold of our legs screaming. We walked around the markets and felt uneasy constantly being glared at so we decided one day to walk to the view point which gives amazing views over the city and because it was New Years day all the locals where there and we were the only tourists, they barged us out of the way and looked at us like we were dirt.
We spent our few days visting the local markets, relaxing and arranging our next port of call eager to leave the big city for Uyuni.
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