La Paz airport is somethng else its like a single storey shed, passport control is run by miltary police wth big guns which is a little scary, paricularily when they start going on at you in spanish and you havent a clue. They searched my bag as well, which consisted of opening it, grunting ang walking off??! (Thank god we arent american though they have to pay a fuortune to get into S American countries its lke 100 US a go, the one time its good to be a brit!)

Theres only two ways to get into the city a taxi or a local bus. We plumped on the taxi (after changing some US into Bolivin . no doubt we got done), but didnt want to trapse around town again looking for an atm)

As you walk out of he airport building you get hounded taxi; you want bus; taxi etc etc, which is a bit much after you havent been to sleep for 27 hrs. I picked a small guy out (thought we could take him if need be) but Steve insisted we see his ID and take the no. before we got in (See Mom - safety first!!)

So we headed off throuh El something (the fastest growing slum city in the world). I was quite surprised everyone is in traditional dress (well the women anyway) i thought this was peruvian and wasnt expecting it till then, so was pelseantly surprised. It gave the city an alien feel (i dont mean that badly but it highlighted the culture more than anywhere else we have been, it felt different if you know what i mean in chile we might as well have been in Madrid) As you come into La Pa you drive along the ridge line of the hills above, and suddnely you see this massive sprawling city clinging to the sides of what looks like a crater below you, with the snow capped Andes above floating on clouds, it does take your breath away (that not just the 3500 m above sea level) Some the constructon is bloody scary, i'm trying not to think about where we are staying!!_

The driver appeared be taking us on a magical mystery tour via the bus station , so Steve started jesturing at the map and suddenly we were nearly there. (Dont know why he bothered we had agreed a price before we got in!) Suddenly a police man on a bike knocks on the window (made me jump i'd zoned out by this point i was so tired) and started jesturing! The taxi driver starts saying "get out get out, no farther, hostal down there." We realised that the road ahead was closed (another protest march about something) so we were unserimoniously dumped on the pavement with our bags and had to walk and find the hostal , luckily enough it was literally 3 mins walk down the road.

Now the door to the hostal was a metal door with a bell, between two shop fronts (didnt look promising) and true to form it was 3 flights of stairs up to his enclosed courtyard and then we were on the 1st floor. Arthys guesthouse - the staff were great , they had a little shop were you could buy water and yoghurt and stuff, wihout going out which was great and the room was ok, though the carpet was a bit scarggy. The major horrow was that we had to share a bathroom. Now i had coped wth this in OZ and we met the couple who were also using the bathroom who were from The UK which put my mind at ease, until i discoveRd that you coulDnt flush the tiolet paper, it went in a bin at the side of the loo (imagine the smell from the bin after a day in 30 degree heat, they only emptied it once a day and on one occaison not for 2 days!)

Anyway we goT into the room aNd that was it, i was out like a light. Again we woke up at 8pm and couldnt face going out for dinner as it was so hetic outside, so we ordered pizza in and rented a vidoe plyer and juno and just laid in bed and had a bed picnic.

Now we were obviously aware of the alltitude sickness and were practically dying just getting up the stairs in the hostel due to lack of oxygen, we just didnt ealise how bad we would be hit, as it was on top of jet lag as well.

We should never have had the pizza as AS effects your digestion , so we were both up all night feeling sick(not being sick) when Steve did get to sleep he snored the place down (cheese!) which meant i had less than 2hrs sleep. I finally fell asleep at 6am and slept till 12. The next day we felt so ill i dont think we left the hostal again, except to get some soup and that took all the energy we had. We bascially existed on soup fruit juice and yoghurt for 4 days (on the plus side i've lost the weight i put on in NZ!) We tried the coca tea which just tasted like green tea not sure if it helped any.

This pattern of headaches, feeling sick, no apetite and insomnia continued for 3 days, we hardly saw any of La Paz, we just couldnt walk it was too hard (and busy and hectic) we managed to get out about 2hr a day tops)so cant realy say much about it. In the end we cut our stay a day short, we had to get ot of there, we just werent enjoying it, so we booked a bus for copacabama for the next day.

The night before we left the couple next to us had asked us if we wanted to go see a wrestling match, not really my thing as i hate boxing at el, but just in a attempt to at least do someting we went. It was funny to begin with as it does look so fake and the wrestlers all had stupid costumes and were playing wth the crowd. However in Bolivia women wrestle, this is when i didnt find it funny anymore, as they were properly beating the poo out of each other. Hitting each other with bits of wood, throwing each other out of the ring and then the men started on the women, sorry its not right, left feeling a bit sick and disgusted. Went back to the hostal and managed some chinese noodles for tea the first meal in 4 days. Got up the next morning feeling a lot better (still not sleeping properly) now wishng we had spent that extra day in La paz so we could have seen the city, oh well..