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Annas and Amazons
It`s official... I heart La Paz! This is a city full of character. There`s something I can`t explain that sets it apart from other big latin american cities... perhaps it`s the altitude getting to my head again! It`s partly the setting I think. Situated high up in the mountains, you look down bustling avenues and in the distance you`ll see snow capped peaks that look like a painted back drop from an old movie... It`s rough round the edges for sure but in such a way that enriches the character of the place. With the old cars and clothes I sometimes felt like I`d been sent back to the 1970s. There are endless street markets where you can buy anything you could ever want or need... knock off dvds, fridges, electronics, clothes... dried llama foetuses!! I`m not joking! One dampener was that I got my bag slashed in one of the markets. I was not in the least bit surprised by this and fortunately I never take anything of any value with me when market shopping so they didn`t get their thieving mitts on anything fortunately... I just now have an extra opening in my bag! There are many ways of tricking and robbing tourists all over latin america... luckily this one put me in no danger and I was familiar with it as I`ve heard it described by other travelers... so when I was surrounded by four men pushing me from each side and saying "perdon, permiso" as if it was really crowded and they couldn`t get through when there street was fairly quiet, I knew something was afoot... I grabbed hold of my wallet which was now half out my pocket and they scattered... I then took a look at my bag and it had been sliced open. Nout lost and could have been worse.
Now on to my birthday. I had been trying to catch up with a london girl who I met and hit it off with in Ecuador. For the last couple of months we`d stayed in touch but never quite been in the same place at the same time... this was to be no exception. I had hoped to celebrate my birthday with her in La Paz but she left just the day before I arrived! Still, she recommended a good place to stay and told me that she still had friends there who would entertain me! So I spent the days running up to my birthday settling in to La Paz and making friends. The hostel was run by a bunch of incredibly friendly people who, along with my new found friends made the dawning of my 28th year very much fun... we had a party on Saturday night and the staff arranged for the whole place to stop and sing happy birthday to me at the stroke of midnight... so much fun was had and new friends were made. Can`t ask much more really... oh apart from wrestling of course! Went to a very comical wrestling match which put characters such as spiderman and elvis up against each other in a hilariously fake display of wwf style wrestling! Worth it`s weight in Bolivianos!
After some fun time in La Paz it was time to remove myself from civilisation for a few days and head to amazon for some monkey business of a different variety...
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