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Donna & Neils Travels
The bus journey from Sucre to La Paz was much better than the one to Sucre, we made sure that we booked a better class of bus and it was a lot more comfortable. We arrived in La Paz at about 5 in the morning and again we were a little apprehensive as there were strange shouting noises coming from the inside of the bus station so we thought it better not to investigate and jumped in a taxi straight away. We had already booked a hostal when we were in Sucre so we didn`t have to mess about and I informed the owner we would be really early and he said that was OK. So it was great to find that the hostal was all nicely locked up when we arrived. Luckily, after about 10 minutes of knocking and ringing the doorbell, a young boy let us in (more about young boys and the hostal owner later). We were knackered so slept most of the morning and then went out to explore the city. La Paz is supposedly the highest capital city in the world and at 3500mts above sea level its pretty breath taking (ha ha!) to say the least. You only have to walk up the steep alleys for about 10 yards and you`re puffing like an old man (oh yes, I am and old man but apparently it happens to young people as well).
The city itself nestles in a valley surrounded by mountains and the urban areas sprawl upwards towards the skies. We stayed mostly around the old town and saw the cathederal (which was pretty impressive), and visited some museums, an interesting one being the Cocoa leaf museum. This explained how the indeginous indians in S america have been using the leaf for thousands of years for medicinal purposes until the west got hold of it and found out by combining it with a few chemicals you can get totally s*** faced. This resulted in it being outlawed and making a somewhat innocent plant, that has been part of a culture for hundeds of years, becoming a very dangerous plant.
Also, it was here that I did the `most dangerous road in the world` bike ride. This was amazing and worth every penny, athough must admit most of the time you were trying so hard to miss the bumps in the road that you didn't notice there was a 400 metre drop on the one side. Donna said that she didn't find the need to flex her testosterone filled muscles to risk flinging herself off a cliff face in the pursuit of excitement so she went off for a girly day out with Delia. So while Lee and I were off risking life and limb Donna and Delia went off drinking wine and talking s***e, sorry, have a good old chinwag. Also, they visited a witchcraft market where you could buy all sorts of concoctions plus, bizarrely enough, llama feotus`s, fantastic.
Really enjoyed La Paz, wish we could have spent a bit more time there. But we had to leave and press on towards Peru as time was passing by really quickly now.
Oh nearly forgot, the guy at the hostal was a total w***er (probably in more sense of the words than one). When we phoned him from Sucre he told us that we could turn up early for our room but what he didn`t tell us that he was going to charge us half day for the privilige. He was very creepy and he had numerous young boys (about 16 or 17) working for him and everything seemed really dodgy. So not too unhappy to be leaving his hostal.
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