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La Paz is the highest capital in the world and probably also one of the most
picturesque settings for a city. The city stands at 4,000 metres above sea level and its ringed by mountains in all directions. It´s also really really cold and the traffic is crazy, its virtually impossible to find a break in the traffic to cross the road and there are absolutely no places for pedestrians to cross.
You can also buy pretty much anything in La Paz as we found when walking around the black market with all of the rip offs and the witches market where you can buy llama foetuses and other lovely things that witches need to cast their spells! Indeed we bumped into a fellow traveller who had bought a fake yellow fever vaccination certificate in the black market so that he could travel to Brazil without having the jab (a bit stupid on his behalf).
Prisoners in Bolivia also have to buy everything they need to survive, they have to pay an entrance fee to jail, purchase their cell and even their food which leads to a very funny prison system with prisoners running businesses from inside jail, restaurants, shops and even drug production businesses from what we´ve heard. We tried to visit the famous San Pedro prison (if you haven´t read it then Marching Powder is a great book written about it by an Australian inmate) but unfortunately we could only look in through the gates. It takes up an entire city block and women and children are constantly going in and out through the gates as the families of the prisoners are able to live with the inmates inside! We could see all the messengers clambouring at the gate to find out who the visitors were there to visit and strangely a crowd of foreigners were queuing up with huge speakers, take away pizzas and large bottles of coke it looked as if there was a party planned inside that night! A crazy system but apparently all of Bolivia´s prisons work in the same way!
The coca museum in La Paz was incredibly interesting. Coca leaves have always been very important in the lives and the religions of the indigineous people and vital for those living athigh altitudes. Coca leaves are placed in the mouth and sucked on to suppress appetite, provide energy and as a social thing with friends and family. However because the Western world have begun to use coca leaves to create cocaine the growing of coca leaves has been banned in many countries. The differences between the effects of coca leaves and cocaine couldn´t be any greater and there really is no reason for the banning of coca leaf consumption in tea or the chewing of the leaves however this seems to be the way the US are pushing South America.
Tiwanaku is a Pre-Incan community which was active from about 1500BC until 1200AD. Similar to the Incans they worshipped the sun and have amazing (and massive) stone monoliths and a sungate at the site with the most beautiful carvings on them. The historians believe that a lot of their culture influenced the later Incan culture so it was fascinating to see it all before we venture into true Incan territory in Peru. Lake Titicaca is now 20km away but it used to surround this site. It is an amazing complex, with a 7 terrace pyramid they used to observe the stars, areas for worship and burial sites for the holy and wise men. The sun-gate and the exterior walls of the complex worked like a calendar for the Tiwanakans as the shadows cast at various times of the year indicated the start of different seasons so they would know when to plant and harvest crops. Very advanced!
We also learnt why we´ve been seeing so many signs talking about a new constituion while in La Paz and other parts of Bolivia. A referendum is coming up on the 4th May which will decide if Bolivia remains united or if 3 states become independent. The states of Santa Cruz, Beni and Tarija wish to become independent (about half of the landmass of Bolivia today) but in La Paz signs saying ´Por Siempre Unida´ (Forever United) are everywhere. I´m just glad that we won´t be here when the results come out as with Bolivia´s fondness of protests I´m sure its gonna be a fiery few weeks no matter what the result.
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