Hola amigos!

After some tearful goodbyes, 2 planes and 13 hours spent in Miami International Airport
I finally landed at 7 am on Thursday morning in La Paz El Alto airport which is situated on an Antiplano above the city, at 4,100m above sea level and with a spectacular backdrop of the Andes. As as you drive away from the airport La Paz city starts to emerge below you with houses sprawling up all the mountain sides, quite an incredible sight from above.

I was met at the airport by Juan, a very friendly Bolivian who tested my Spanish as he shared various facts about the city with my sleepy self! He drove me straight to the hostel where I was relived to meet up with Chloe and Katie! Felt completely knackered with the combination of the journey and the altitude sickness but didnt want to sleep all day so after a breakfast of pancakes, a hot shower and a few aspirin (a life saver at altitude I have discovered!) we set off to explore the city!

La Paz is such a vibrant city- the roads are lined with street vendors, colourful market stalls and locals in their native dress (most of the women wear bowler hats- apparently bought over by a British man in the 1800´s who persuaded them that they were the fashionable thing to wear in Europe as he couldnt shift his stock in England and the tradition has stuck since!) We went to look at the Witches Market where various potions can be bought along with good luck charms including baby Llama foetus´s- some of which still have their hair on them :(

Yesterday we went on a city tour of La Paz and were taken to the Val de Lunes (Moon Valley) in the far South of the city which is much lower down and is where the wealthier districts are found- supposedly as they get more Oxygen here so therefore houses are much more expensive. The Val de Lunes is an incredble valley through the Andes with incredible stalagmites accross the valley sides.

At 10pm last night we met my lovely Bolivian Pen Pals- Paola and Sofia at a popular Bolivian bar and restaurant called Mungo´s. I got on really well with them- Sofia works at the airport and Paola in tourism and they had lots of their work friends with them too. We danced the night away and are meeting up with them all again tonight and possibly tomorrow too before we leave La Paz on Monday. I broke the no alcohol at altitude policy as the bolivian wine and rum was too tempting but I don´t seem to be too worse off for it today, bit light headed but you get used to feeling like that after a while as you generally feel this all the time at this altitude. Looking forward to getting back to sea level when we get to Argentina!

We woke up this morning at 12 and have spent the afternoon in a cafe having a long brunch and watching the footie! The food here is OK, have tried the local favorites Saltenas and last night I had an amazing Quesidilla but on the whole it hasn´t been great.

We leave La Paz on Monday for Uyuni where will we take our tour through the Salt flats to San Pedro de Atacama in Chile. It will get even colder there, at the moment it gets down to about -5 degrees at night and even under the thick blankets in the hostel it can get very chilly as there is no heating.

I will write again when I get to San Pedro. Hope everyone is well.

Hasta Luego!

Soph xxx