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Date: 9th - 12th November 2006 La Paz - Altitude of 3636 metres above sea level
Russ: We left the town of Puno at 7.30 as it was a 3 hour drive to the border where we were leaving Peru and entering into Bolivia. When we got to the border we had to queue in the immigration office filling out our entry forms to enter the country which took quite a while as it usually does with South American borders. Then once we were through we had our second delay of the day as it was the anniversary of the town so there was Peruvian and Bolivian soldiers and other people marching through the town so again everything came to a stand still but trust the Irish to say hey guys(to the soldiers) can we get a picture with you haha and they did. The ladies marching through behind the soldiers were wearing really colourful and smart dresses it all looked very rehearsed and a big event for the countries. We had to walk passed it all to get back on Doris which had been parked quite a way up the street, but it was cool to see.
The third delay of the day came as pretty much the only decent road you have to take was blocked because of a cycle race, so we spent another hour waiting in a huge traffic jam while the race went past, but this was a nice excuse to stop for our lunch break, had a field to play footie but yet again another foul toilet haha. This is where Mel started to get quite ill with altitude sickness and couldnt eat lunch because she was feelin so bad. Once we finally got on our way we headed to Tiahuanaco ruins which are over 1000 years old, the tribe were around about 1500BC - 1200AD before they had their ass kicked by the Incas haha. There was a small museum and a temple ruin on site which was pretty cool, I would say we learnt but since I prob wasn't listening and im copying Matts diary he learnt that babies who were chosen to become priests had their heads squashed at the age of 2-3 when they were still supple so they grew up with longer heads (i can only think of the film Coneheads). The Puma and Snake were Gods to these people, the ruins were pretty sweet and is the most important ruin site in Bolivia. However, they are not fully excavated yet though, there was a big pyramid which will be great to look around when its been dug up. The people used to live off Lake Titicaca as it was bigger and closer to the river in those days.Some people didn't look around these ruins, including Mel who was very ill and stayed on the bus, she had a bad altitude head ache with shivers and being sick poor melly.
We left the site and continued on to La Paz, we arrived about 6 and booked into a great hotel which was more like big apartments on each floor, our apartment had 3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, kitchen and dining room with huge table and lounge area with a big TV felt like luxury. There was us 3, Ado, Joe, Steve, Debbie and Felix in the one apartment which was such a laugh sharing with the irish and the best place we had stayed in so far was a great place.
Mel was still feeling really lousy so when we went for city tour she stayed in bed in the apartment, then everyone went out to say goodbye to the tour members who were leaving in La Paz, whilst Matt and Mel stayed in the hotel. (Mel: I was so sick kept saying to Matt think I'm dying haha what a drama queen hey but wasn't well at all, Matt brought back food and had to spoon feed me chicken soup because I couldn't even sit up eek, but I drank coca tea which seemed to help me get better). Russ: I represented Jersey and went out with everyone else drinking till late again I can tell you :). Since i cant be bothered to keep a diary, i sort of remember the club being called Ram Jams and it being pretty s*** but we managed to get in to V.I.P area where a butler like bloke would take our drink orders haha, they also had one of those oxygen bars up stairs which we tried but its basically like paying someone money for what I do for free anyway breath - amazing what people can make you pay for when you've had a few. I'm not sure when i got home :)
La Paz is a great city very busy and big, its like one massive market place as there is lots of shops and markets everywhere, where you can literally buy anything and very cheap - its all stolen but who cares it works!
The next day we got up at 8ish for our La Paz city tour which started at 9.30, there was 9 of us on the tour including us 3 and was actually really good, Mel was feeling heaps better, think the coca tea she had helped so she was able to come along too. We drove around town at first seeing all the different areas which was great. We stopped off on a street that was full of locals selling fruits and veggies on little stalls, there were little stable rooms just full really high with oranges and other fruits was bizzare to see. Our guide also delivered some cool facts along the way: 1-The older women all wear Bowler hats because in the 90's a British Railway firm ran out of money to pay its workers so instead they gave them Bowler hats (f***ed ifi'd work for a bowlerhat) which actually caught on and became a fashion trend but its beginning to die out now as most younger woman try to dress more western so will not wear the hats but most the older woman are still wearing them. 2-All kids grow there hair until about 3 at which point the Godfather cuts off a bit of hair and leaves money on the table, the rest of the family then follow suit and this money goes towards buying animals for the child until about 10 when he then takes care of them, which teaches responsibility and respect.
One of the funniest things the guide spoke of was a drug dealer called Roberto Swarez who offered to pay off Bolivias national debt with his huge fortune if he was allowed to sell drugs legally haha. One cool fact is that La Paz only has 3 fire engines for over 8 million people because of the lack of oxygen, Fires rarely spring up and burn (also why cigarettes burn much slower woohoo, didn't mean I smoked less either!).
We also headed to the Gold museam which was pretty good, they had a huge vault with Gold masks and Jewellery from different ruin sites, the security guards stuck with you like glue too which was quite annoying but was cool to see all the different artifacts here. We also went to a good viewpoint of the whole cty where we could get photos of the city, and also got taken to this area which was called Moon valley as there were all these cool rock formations which resembled the moon in its shapes and forms. The last stop of the tour was the Witches Market which is just one long street of touristy shops selling jewelry and alpaca goods. Once we got dropped off here we had the rest of the afternoon to look around so we looked about the markets and other shops on different streets and even popped to good old burger king haha.
Before heading back to hotel we stopped at Alcohol Alley which is justly named and like all of Bolivia it costs pennies for Spirits and beer galore, oops-almost drooled on keyboard with the memory :) Mel was happy she managed to find Malibu and for a cheap price hehe. There were just lots of little shops all selling spirits and beers all the way up the street so we had a good look around and brought our stock of booze, Pete found a bargain with vodka, strong stuff in a huge container for only a couple of quid had about 5 litres in it haha.
That night we had a mini party upstairs at Mike and Steves apartment which was not as good as ours (but theirs did have a cool balcony with a great view of the city from it) haha but thought we better make an appearance :) they had brought huge pizzas which were the size of about 10 pizzas put together for us all to eat. We played the horseracing game and watched lots of pics on steves laptop (cant even remember some, fancy that). We stayed there till about midnight until others went out but we went back to our flat and drank some more, which was a good laugh. We listened to music and played cards with the loser doing a dare Debbs had to drink a good shot (was about 3 shots in one) of vodka which made her quite ill oops. Think Matt and Mel went to bed about 2.30 and me - well im not too sure again:).
We got up the following day at about 9.00 after a bit of a lie in(well needed) and Matt and Mel went on a mission to phone Qantus and find out if we could change flights and extend trip but its impossible to get out of South America at the end of jan with carnival and it being a popular holiday season so we couldn't extend the tour. After that the 3 of us went to the electronics black market which is great, a street full of electronic stores selling pretty much anything and everything, i bought a watch and new ipod for less than half the price than back home hahahaha.
We then returned to Witches market and Mel and I bought hammocks-sweet(oh yeah Roger and Dennis you better start planting some trees so we can hook these to) I went home after that as wasnt feeling so hot(not sure why haha) while Matt and Mel headed to Coca museum which was interesting, showed a list of CocaCola products and wine that used to contain cocaine.
Later they returned to hotel when Matt forced me to start drinking again :) and Mel had brought alot more stuff from markets mostly jewelry haha. Debbs and Mel went off again to buy some more bargains in the shops and markets while we had a few drinks and went out to get takeaway. All of us ate in our apartment and got an early night as we were all tired and still weren't feeling too great.
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