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Hello,
Well it's been a busy week or so since we last ´spoke´ and what a crazy old time we´ve been having so brace yourself for quite a loooonnnng blog.
La Paz capital of Bolivia: mental place. In appearance it's pretty breathtaking as it fills a whole valley, with houses (or rather shacks) clinging onto every available inch of ground. The wealthy live in the base of the valley where the air is clearer and then it's a sliding scale up to the top where the air is smoggiest from the city below. But the poor do get the best views so it's not all bad. La Paz at 3,600 meters is also home to the world's highest sky scrapers, a clever little fact that we are holding onto as it's bound to come up in a pub quiz at some point.
We tried to visit the main square in La Paz on a number of occasions but at the time the President - old Evo Morales - was on hunger strike in the presidential palace so the square was blocked off. He's a comical bloke is old Evo. He's on a hunger strike because the second chamber wouldn't sign off his electoral law. I love it, it's so brilliantly stamp-your-feet childish, imagine Gordon Brown trying this one with the lords - "if you won´t sign off my budget plans I´ll stop eating" anyway it worked for Evo a couple of days later his plans were passed.
We weren't too keen on La Paz, it was definitely a dodgy place with pick pockets and bag slashers abound. Everyone you meet seemed to have a story about someone they knew getting robbed etc so it did mean you were totally on guard everywhere you went. Also we found that La Pa attracted a very different type of tourist namely very rich British kids who seemed to be there to take copious amounts of cocaine. So as well as talking about who'd been robbed where, the other main topic of conversation was who'd snorted what where. Honestly as an advert for Britain it was really a little embarrassing. Also a little stupid I mean have these kids never seen the TV show "Banged up abroad" flouncing around La Paz with a bag full of cocaine really is asking for trouble - and besides wouldn't it be cheaper to stay at home?
Another weird thing about La Paz is one of its main tourist attractions is San Pedro Prison. Correct a prison. As far as I can figure out it all started a few years back when some plucky young tourist bribed a couple of prison guards and was allowed to peak in at some of the country's finest citizens. This has now ballooned into quite the business. Tourists effectively bribe prisoners and guards to have a tour of the prison. Very odd and it's not cheap either, essentially its 30 pound - that's like three days accommodation and more than any other attraction in Bolivia, and far more than most weekly wages. So as a tourist you have a dilemma to join in this macabre spectacle, and knowingly and openly give a lot of money to drug dealers, murderers and pedos or do you take the moral high ground walk on by? See being a tourist is not that easy you have to make these decisions. So what did we do? ... You´ll be pleased to know that we didn´t visit.
So why did we stop in a criminally infested, morally corrupt crack den (La Paz)? Well mainly it was to cycle down "The World's Most Dangerous Road". This is a mountain bike ride 65k down a dirt road with a 300 meter cliff drop right there next to you - just don't look down. A pure adrenaline hit. In the mid 90s this road had the highest number of fatalities in … well … the world but now it's largely closed to traffic and just crazy tourist mountain bikers give it a go. It was awesome and we´ll put the pictures up soon so you can all gasp in amazement.
Leaving La Paz we headed towards Cusco, in Peru, as we had an appointment to keep with the Inca Trail and our very good friends Rachel and Joel who have flown out to meet us for a two week holiday. One small teen-weenie problem we got to the last town in Bolivia (Copacabana - the hottest spot north of Havana) to find that Cusco was under blockade! Farmers had barricaded all the roads from Bolivia to Cusco (in protest at the high water rates in Peru).
Farmers forcing a blockade are we in France? Nope welcome to Peru. So we had a very nervous day waiting around seeing how talks would pan out, would the strike be lifted or would it go on for another 3 days eekk we had friends to meet and an Inca Trail to trek but there was nothing we could do (our Spanish is yet to develop to union negotiation level). So we did what we could which amounted to finding a bar and sitting back. Eventually we heard murmurs that things were changing so we crossed the border into Peru and found the first bus "going for it". We figure what the hell and hop on figuring it might be a long journey but you have to try and … we made it! Phewf.
Next blog will be all about the Inca Trail which we have just completed. Here is a taster: Amazing, wow, incredible, ooooo, wow, amazing.
Lots of love Polly and Pete
Ps anyone who didn't get the Havana reference please revise your Barry Manilow and no we didn't see Lola.
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