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The lonely planet book had some scary things to say about La Paz, including that express kidnappings (where a taxi driver picks you up and then a number of his/her friends jump in and beat you until you give up your money, credit cards and atm details) have been reported. Needless to say, we were wary of getting cabs and always looked to take radio taxis rather than the local franchise taxis. We didn´t have any issues at all in the end and in fact, I felt really safe and found the taxi drivers and other people we interacted with to be really friendly and overly helpful.
When we arrived at our hostel, it was too early to check in so we hung out in the bar and got some brekky. That´s where we met three of our fav people on this trip - a crazy half Nigerian, half Russian English man who has the gift of the gab times a thousand and is so excitable and a pair of English girls who are in the last legs of their year adventure through South East Asia, New Zealand, Australia (although not Melbourne) and now South America.
Once we got talking we made plans to go to an out of town market which only runs on Thursdays and Sundays. The market was near the top of one of the edges of the valley and sprawled across streets blocked off from traffic. You could pretty much buy anything you could imagine there - clothes, food, hygiene products, building materials, car parts. And I´m sure if there was something you wanted that you couldn´t see, it could be stolen in a giffy for you for the right price.
Walking around the market was pretty exhausting because of the high altitude. Depending on whether you are in the valley or on the outskirts, the altitude is between 3,500 and 4,000 meters above sea level. Since Brent and I had flown in, we were particularly badly huffing and puffing up the steps. Also, coming from the stinking heat of Iguazu and Argentina in general, it was really cold in La Paz.
After a few laughs, some random purchases of deep fried banana chips and coconut biscuits from street vendors, we descended back down into the valley. There we explored a random above ground multi-story car park shopping mall which was half deserted and ate some deep fried mashed potato balls stuffed with egg, meat and vegetables which were delicious and drunk freshly blended juices with papaya and mango and some fruits I didn´t even recognise, all for a couple of dollars.
We also found a local artesan undercover market where you could see silversmiths soldering the jewellery that was displayed in the cabinets. I made a few great purchases of silver earrings with llamas and traditional symbols for what I thought was a steal and also got a hug from the wife of the jeweller!
Back at the hostel, I was starting to feel some altitude sickness coming on so I took a nap. By the time I returned to the bar, the party was kicking off. The night involved dancing on the bar, having shots free poured into our mouths, a random dare game involving dice and number guessing, a 45 minute bus trip to the after party at the worst Irish pub/club where there was some horrendous dirty dancing going on to early 2000s electro balads, a daylight exit and a renegade room party with our crazy new friend giving us a slide presentation of his life including his 8 year old daughter, stripper ex-gf, psychotic boss in one of Gordon Ramsay´s restaurants and the antics on the luxury cruise vessels he chefs on.
The first night pretty much epitomised our stay in La Paz, which meant late starts and not a lot of sight seeing. We did go on a walking tour of the city which was really interesting. Our guide had fantastic knowledge of the political history of Bolivia, which is hard to believe is not straight satire. For example, one of Bolivia´s former Presidents skipped the country after cleaning out the populations bank accounts and is now living happily in Maryland, US. The current President, who is the first in Bolivia`s history to receive more than 50 percent of the vote and is indigeous has publicly made comments such as ¨Bolivians should stop eatting chicken because chicken makes you gay.¨
We also visited the witches market where you could buy a llama foetus for good luck/measure particularly for highrise construction (rather than investing in safety gear) or some follow-me follow-me powder to ¨subtly¨ throw on your crush so they fall in love with you.
So in summary, La Paz is weird and wonderful and a lot of fun, and altitude and weather aside, very beautiful.
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