La Paz has to be one of the maddest places on this planet populated by even madder people! We flew into La Paz airport which is situated on the altiplano above the city and immediately felt the effects of the increased altitude ...... lugging our rucksacks across the terminal it felt like we were towing the plane into the arrivals lobby. As usual, we took 20 minutes to take stock, find a cash machine and decide what to do. The buses, whilst they looked exciting with their live cargo of chickens, lamas and big sweaty Bolivians, did not appeal so we took a taxi into the centre. Lovely, if slightly mad, taxi driver took us to a hostel 10 metres away from the hostel we wanted and instead of letting us out insisted ( I think) on driving us around several blocks to get around the one way system before delivering us to the door. Gave him 3 Bolivianos tip ( about 30p) and you would have thought that we had just paid for him to spend the night in the best hotel in La Paz with the mistress of his choice! We were staying in Arthy´s which has the look of a dodgy, dirty brothel but was in fact very, very nice ..... in the centre of things but quiet, peaceful, clean and helpful.
Mad eth emistake of talking to some fellow holidaymakers and they recommended a place called El Lobo ..... went there the same night, had the worst meal of the entire trip and spent the next 3 days with food poisoning - quite nasty as had the ^^^^^^, fever, freezing cold, sick ... well... the lot ! Still somehow managed to get out and about though and even more miraculously did not get run over. La Paz is the single most dangerous place to cross the road ( in my experience), there are few traffic lights and where they are both drivers and police ignore them, apparently they are there to make the place look modern which is difficult when 90% of the women all wear traditional voluminous skirts, wear bowler hats and carry their babies in a blanket on their back. Also, use of a car horn is de rigeur especially when it´s use can frighten the crap out of any pedestrians.
Despite the traffic dangers and the 100´s of males wearing full balaclavas ( the ones with just two eye holes and a mouth hole) the place feels relatively safe. Perhaps this is because of the minimum of two riot policeman on each street corner who wear full body armour (including leg protection) and carry grenades, tear gas and fully automatic rifles (or shotguns)and who ae ready to wheel out the steel barricades to block off the road at a moments notice. By the way, the balaclavas? they are worn by shoeshine boys / men and not terrorists. Apparently polishing shoes is shameful (at leats it is the way that I do it).
Shopping ...... basically there is only one supermarket in La Paz which is about the size of your local cornershop in London. Everything is done on the streets either on a small stall or by someone approaching you asking if you want to buy. Whilst in La Paz we were approached by people selling sunglasses, soap dishes, fossils, finger puppets, cigarettes and sweets. There are lots of other things that people approach you with but I guess that we just did´nt look in the market for toilet plungers that day.
We stumbled across an advert for the Bolivian National Symphony Orchestra whilst in La Paz and simply could not turn down the opportunity so promtly booked ourselves the best seats. Definately an experience.... they weere not too bad actually despite a half empty theatre although one of the orchestra members could barely contain his enthusiasm and kept flashing the biggest teeth I have ever seen ... bless him !
Took the plunge and bought myself a new pair of glasses whilst we were there .. novel experience as no-one had the slightest idea what any of us were saying.Despite this, 1 week later I managedto get a very nice new pair of glasses .... I may even grow to like the pink butterfly frames!
Mad eth emistake of talking to some fellow holidaymakers and they recommended a place called El Lobo ..... went there the same night, had the worst meal of the entire trip and spent the next 3 days with food poisoning - quite nasty as had the ^^^^^^, fever, freezing cold, sick ... well... the lot ! Still somehow managed to get out and about though and even more miraculously did not get run over. La Paz is the single most dangerous place to cross the road ( in my experience), there are few traffic lights and where they are both drivers and police ignore them, apparently they are there to make the place look modern which is difficult when 90% of the women all wear traditional voluminous skirts, wear bowler hats and carry their babies in a blanket on their back. Also, use of a car horn is de rigeur especially when it´s use can frighten the crap out of any pedestrians.
Despite the traffic dangers and the 100´s of males wearing full balaclavas ( the ones with just two eye holes and a mouth hole) the place feels relatively safe. Perhaps this is because of the minimum of two riot policeman on each street corner who wear full body armour (including leg protection) and carry grenades, tear gas and fully automatic rifles (or shotguns)and who ae ready to wheel out the steel barricades to block off the road at a moments notice. By the way, the balaclavas? they are worn by shoeshine boys / men and not terrorists. Apparently polishing shoes is shameful (at leats it is the way that I do it).
Shopping ...... basically there is only one supermarket in La Paz which is about the size of your local cornershop in London. Everything is done on the streets either on a small stall or by someone approaching you asking if you want to buy. Whilst in La Paz we were approached by people selling sunglasses, soap dishes, fossils, finger puppets, cigarettes and sweets. There are lots of other things that people approach you with but I guess that we just did´nt look in the market for toilet plungers that day.
We stumbled across an advert for the Bolivian National Symphony Orchestra whilst in La Paz and simply could not turn down the opportunity so promtly booked ourselves the best seats. Definately an experience.... they weere not too bad actually despite a half empty theatre although one of the orchestra members could barely contain his enthusiasm and kept flashing the biggest teeth I have ever seen ... bless him !
Took the plunge and bought myself a new pair of glasses whilst we were there .. novel experience as no-one had the slightest idea what any of us were saying.Despite this, 1 week later I managedto get a very nice new pair of glasses .... I may even grow to like the pink butterfly frames!
Also took the opportunity to attempt a 6000 metre climb in the Andes....... bit of a mistake really as the guide was completely incompetent. Against my better judgement and despite my pointing out lightening that appeared to be moving in quite quickly I continued to climb. At 5,900 metres I could not go on .... was vomiting, could not co-ordinate and was becoming confused. The guide, instead of getting me down took my climbing partner ( a German climber) further up ..... he simply told me not to move ! Faced with the fact that we were in the middle of a snow storm and it was very, very cold I dug myself a snow coffin, covered it with my pack and the pack that the guide had left, set my headtorch to emergency beacon and sang to myself. Some 45 mins later the guide returned (the German climber having joined another party apparently) and got me back to higher base camp at 5,200 metres (not before leaving me behind some 30 minutes before we actually got to the camp .... when I got in he was in his sleeping bag! Next morning a Doctor and his wife who were attempting a new route up appeared ... diagnosed me with onset of cerebral oedema, gave me some tablets and told the guide to short rope me down to lower base camp immediately. Felt like crap for 3-4 days but just glad I didn´t go further. Tiddly winks for me from now on!
One of the things we had to do in Bolivia was take a trip down the ´World´s most dangerous road´. Now considering the last time I went on a bike ride was 5 years ago and this was a mountain bike ride some 67km long - it was a little daunting!! The double whammy being that as the name suggests, quite a few poor sods never made it to the end of their bus journeys home, instead plummeting 1000m down the side of extraordinary steep mountains..so with that in mind...we set off!
An early start and some tips about how to stay on the bike - and we were off. Luckily the first 22km were on asphalt..so we picked up some speed and cycled through the fog - getting a glimpse of the amazing scenery through the cloud. Then it was onto the bumpy road itself and I have to admit - I did try out my brakes quite often on the first stretch! Tony was in his element once he picked up speed - and could often be seen hurtling just behind the guide at the very front. How shall I put this...I enjoyed a more leisurely pace and I dont think I blinked once on the way down!
Although we did get the chance to have a few breaks to enjoy the phenomenal scenery and also take a couple of layers of clothing off as although we started at 4000m...we descended to 1900m and the small town of Coroico. I should say now that things were made a lot easier for us by the fact that last November, they opened a new asphalt road which all the cars now use instead of the WMDR - so we had the whole road to ourselves - all 3 m wide of it!!
Had a well deserved beer at the bottom of the road and a 4 hour bus journey back to La Paz at the end of it! The great news is that as our bikes had the most amazing suspension - our arses werent even sore the next day!!
An early start and some tips about how to stay on the bike - and we were off. Luckily the first 22km were on asphalt..so we picked up some speed and cycled through the fog - getting a glimpse of the amazing scenery through the cloud. Then it was onto the bumpy road itself and I have to admit - I did try out my brakes quite often on the first stretch! Tony was in his element once he picked up speed - and could often be seen hurtling just behind the guide at the very front. How shall I put this...I enjoyed a more leisurely pace and I dont think I blinked once on the way down!
Although we did get the chance to have a few breaks to enjoy the phenomenal scenery and also take a couple of layers of clothing off as although we started at 4000m...we descended to 1900m and the small town of Coroico. I should say now that things were made a lot easier for us by the fact that last November, they opened a new asphalt road which all the cars now use instead of the WMDR - so we had the whole road to ourselves - all 3 m wide of it!!
Had a well deserved beer at the bottom of the road and a 4 hour bus journey back to La Paz at the end of it! The great news is that as our bikes had the most amazing suspension - our arses werent even sore the next day!!
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