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We hadn't expected La Paz to be such a large city. It's another high altitude one at 3,668 metres above sea level. As we come in on the bus we start winding our way down the road to the centre. This city is bowl-shaped and appears as though the houses have slipped down the hills and into the pot at the bottom, like some kind of house soup! Once we get to the bus stop we grab a taxi to our hostal in an area called Sopachi in the south of the city. We choke on fumes coming through the car window as we sit in traffic jam, after traffic jam. There doesn't seem to be any road sense and not much in the way of traffic lights or road etiquette. It's just every man for himself, with the buses, trucks and taxi's all vying for their space.
We get to our hostal and are pleasantly surprised at our lovely room. It is crammed full of beautiful wooden furniture and the large bed is very comfortable. The room is so nice we are not bothered that the equally nice bathroom (which is for our use only) is in the corridor outside the room (although there was one incident of a peeping Tom looking through the corridor window!)
The area is a little more residential, so is quieter and has more trees and green squares than the manic centre we drove through. There are street vendors everywhere making fresh juices, cooking hot snacks, selling household goods or clothing. They are crammed on the pavements that are already too small to walk two abreast, so we are constantly stepping off the pavement and into the road to get ahead. We walk around town and are wheezing up the hill realising that high altitude and polluted air are not a good combination.
We visit the Plaza San Francisco and go into the Iglesia de San Franisco and Jesuit Friary. The museum has sketchy factual information backed up by some dodgy figurines re-enacting battles and the daily life of the city's first locals. We are able to walk up to the bell tower. As the big door closes behind us we are left alone in an upper floor of the church with cobwebs and old books, and it all feels quite spooky. We almost get put off of the walk to the bell tower, as the stone stairwell is so narrow and cramped. We get up there at breakneck speed just to get out into the sunlight at the top. The views across the roman clay roof tiles of the cathederal are a worthwhile sight, although seeing the smog hanging low isn't too appealing. Before we are too tempted to ring the church bells we find the exit staircase. This is equally as narrow and in addition, we can't see the bottom as the stairway goes around a corner. It only takes us a couple of claustrophobic minutes to get down and then we start to breath again.
We stand in the crowded main square and watch a yo-yo competition and at the same time we see someone abseiling head first down the side of a building. It's a great place to people watch!
We continue walking to the market area where large old women sit falling asleep amongst their fruit and veg displays in the rubbish scattered all around. We have read about the witches market where weird potions are sold, promising to heal any kind of disease, infection or bodily imperfection. We see what we believe is a dried llama fetus, which is used to bury beneath a new house to inspire good luck. We had also heard there are critter parts and other animal parts that make for some interesting browsing, however, we are disappointed to find that most of the stuff is in jars and boxes, with some odd drawings on there to show what they are used for, without showing what is actually inside. The 'viagra' box particularly held our attention!
The whole downtown area is dirty, scruffy and ramshackle. We are not feeling the love for La Paz as we are stumbling over broken pavements and gulping down fumes from the old buses chugging up the steep hills. This is probbably not helped as neither of us are feeling particularly well, on top of not sleeping too well, as the usual high altitude problem means we are waking up trying to catch a breath every few hours.
While in La Paz we are trying to book onwards journeys, but the slow internet connection, failing websites and lack of information is like walking through treacle. Our next stop is the salt flats of Uyuni and we need a tour company to do this. The numerous tour companies that we have tried are not responding to our emails and we can't book the flights till we know we definitely have a tour. There are so many tour agencies that run these tours, but there are so many of them that have horror stories plastered all over Trip Advisor. We, therefore, want to make sure we get a decent one.
Due to the fact we are still waiting for confirmation of a tour, we need to stay an additional night in La Paz, but our beautiful hotel is booked out. We opt for a cheap basic hostel in the centre just to get our heads down for the last night. We confirm by email that we would like to go ahead with the salt flats trip through an agency called Red Planet, however, they then do not respond tp Steve's many chasing emails to confirm that we are booked with them. With time running out we book through another agency via Paola, the tour operator in the hostal. She calls Red Planet to see if they have our booking and they say they are full and can't accommodate us. As it's so last minute we go with an agency with not such good trip reviews just to ensure we get something. We are just doing a one-day trip as we have already seen many similar things when we stayed in San Pedro (Chile) that are included in the three-day trip. Paolo arranges everything for us including booking a taxi for our early start to the airport. We end our trip in La Paz with a 'British curry!'
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