In San Pedro Plaza with Crazy Dave. Check out the YouTube video below of his presentation (if it uploads in time)
Day 26 Sunday
We did both enjoy our curry last night, though neither of us could finish. We didn't however enjoy the pouring rain all the way home.
What to do with ourselves today? We have a one hour flight at 19.30 (rather than the 12 hour overnight bus journey, which would have been half the price, but you arrive feeling rubbish, probably unable to get in to your room....it's what we would have done last time, but how times have changed!)
I'd reserved this place to put the YouTube video I've
put together of Crazy Dave, but it's taking so long to upload on the wifi
here that I've given up. 17% upload after 3 hours! I'll add it to the next blog
it'll be well worth watching!
We don't have to check out till midday, but he posted the blog last night so we might as well go out. Google maps says the Mamani Mamani art museum is closed, which is a real shame, but that the Murillo museum was open till 13.00. we retraced the route we'd done with Johnny, but how different it was on a Sunday, so quiet. Surprisingly the art gallery was open which we were both pleased about, we both really loved the colours, but couldn't even contemplate buying at this point. The Murillo museum however wasn't! We drifted around for a bit, found a market and an iced coffee before heading to San Pedro Plaza for 13.00. This is the time that Johnny said Crazy Dave does his presentation.
The notorious San Pedro prison, La Paz with queues of women waiting to go inside
Crazy Dave is an ex NY coke head. Lives on the street apparently (though unlike his slightly irritating friend, he didn't actually smell) and would be identifiable by being dressed all in green. We were a few minutes early so we sat on a bench watching the women queuing to get into the prison, and the policemen just milling about in the square. He was easily identifiable, and just as I pointed him out to Brian he approached us to ask if we were here for the presentation?
Side entrance to the 'private wing' of San Pedro prison with queues of women waiting to go inside to be with their husbands
He talked for an hour, to us and at least another 5 people, going off on tangents and being right in your face. He didn't mind photos or being videoed though whether Brian can manage to edit anything down today remains to be seen. We got a potted life story, basically coming down to how he ended up being arrested in Bolivia for trying to smuggle out 2 bottles of cocaine liquid and put into San Pedro for 14 years. His first year was hell, the second easy when the bosses realised he could help their kids with English, paying him 6g of cocaine a day. He then went to work in the cocaine factory before becoming one of the prison tour guides!
Cheers from The English Pub, La Paz
He seemed like a nice guy, didn't feel threatening, was very funny and has been doing this talk for tips for at least 7 years. He's well overstayed his time in Bolivia, but can't go back to the USA as the alimony he owes his ex wife (whose affair with his drug supplier produced the 3rd baby, that tipped him over the edge) is more money than he can ever hope to lay his hands on. Intelligent and well practiced the presentation was an hour, almost to the minute, that we all enjoyed spending with him.
Our small local plane to take us from La Paz to Sucre
A late lunch at the English bar, fish and chips for B and sausage and mash for me, with the end of the England v Ireland football game and we went back to the hotel to wait for our airport taxi.
It was early, so we were early, couldn't check in, but they did eventually let us. All very laid back. As we went through for boarding, down some stairs and out onto the tarmac, there didn't appear to be a plane, but there's was, a tiny jet, but that's ok. It took off early, I guess all passengers were onboard and for some reason did the whole flight in the dark, apart from checking we were all buckled up before coming in to land! Unsurprisingly we landed early too, our bags were through promptly but how great, there was our taxi driver with a sign with our name on.
Lovely Sucre. The centre of town is beautifully kept with these fabulous white buildings. This one is the Autonomous Departmental Government of Chuquisaca building
We were out of the airport before we should even have landed and off for half an hour to our hotel in Sucre.
View from the plaza. Its the government building on the right and the tower of the cathedral on the left
Day 27 Monday
A slightly late start, but we hadn't got anything planned for Sucre, the official capital of Bolivia, just to wander around and look at the attractive white colonial buildings. We walked to the park and went up the Eiffel tower and basically drifted with a vengeance finally finishing up with a rooftop visit to the San Felipe Nero convent, now a school, but used to be a monastery ( no I don't know how a convent used to be a monastery either). The prime reason for visiting was to go to the roof and look out over the city. Well worth it. See our Relive video with photos: click here
This is still on the plaza but at 90 degrees and, this building is the Casa de la Libertad, a very important building not only in the history of Bolivia, but of all of South America for it was here that the declaration of independence from Spain was signed on 6th August 1825. It was signed by none other than Simon Bolivar and Mariscal Antonio Jose de Sucre, after whom the city was named
In between drifting we had been in communication with a cruise company in the UK offering what seemed like a great deal on a trip from San Antonio (close to Santiago in Chile) round, the bottom, passing Antarctica, The Falkland Islands finishing up in Buenos Aires. For 22 days in February. I think we have a cabin but the promotion seems to have taken everyone by surprise!
We went in, well, we had to, this is history before us and this is Simon Bolivar, recognised as the liberator of South America from Spain
Day 28 Tuesday
We both woke up a little late, but we'd neither slept well. Very hot, despite the thunderstorm outside.
And here is the declaration of independence document. Like the American declaration of independence it was signed before freedom was obtained, it was a declaration of intent. Many more years of fighting the Spanish were ahead of them
We had been contemplating a taxi to Potosi, our next destination, tomorrow, but what our lady at the hotel said it should cost compared to what the taxi company who brought us from the airport quoted, we've decided to get the bus. We yomped to the bus station to buy tickets for tomorrow as time was a bit tight but the process seems to have been quite easy. £3 for 3-4 hour bus journey tomorrow as opposed to somewhere between £24 and £38 for a taxi!
This room was covered by the past presidents of Bolivia and I included this photo as, top left is Juan Moralis, the ex president and prospective president for next years election that we wrote about in our last post
We got back in time to pick up the Dino bus which took us out to the local cement factory. In 1994 while mining limestone one of the largest collections of fossilized dinosaur footprints in the world was found on a vertical wall. According to Wikipedia there are a total of 12,092 individual dinosaur tracks in 465 trackways. Nine different morphotypes of dinosaur tracks have been documented, including several trackways of theropods, ornithopods, ankylosaurs, and sauropods, with the latter group accounting for 26% of the trackways.
This is Independence Hall, the seat of the government of Bolivia until 1898
It was an amazing site, albeit on a vertical wall rather than a lake bed, perhaps this made it easier to see. A few years ago a section fell down, only to expose more footprints underneath, fortunately it's not on good limestone so the quarry doesn't mind the visitors and guided tours. Their opinion might be different if they actually wanted to use the material.
From the top of the room looking back is this fabulous balcony
Back to the room, I've written and Brian is looking at video clips of Crazy Dave. It could take a while for the blog to be published.
This is the actual flag of General Manuel Belgrano (anyone remember the ship General Belgrano that was sunk by the British in the Falklands War?). He was commander of the Army of the North and it was used to swear in his troops. This ensign fluttered victoriously at the Battle of Salta on 20th February 1813 and as the army climbed to Alto Peru. They were defeated there and the flag was hidden in a church near Potosi as they retreated. It was found accidentally 72 years later in 1885 hidden in an altar
Tomorrow we go to Potosi so after 3 nights at a couple of hundred metres lower than we had been, tomorrow we go to just over 4000m!
It was a thoroughly enjoyable visit and we took in a lot of history over a couple of hours, so it was time for refreshments!
As we came out there was some sort of protest going on in the plaza. It seemed pretty peaceful so I risked taking a photo. No idea what it was all about, but they'd marched halfway round the plaza chanting something
Just a short walk away was Simon Bolivar Park and this was the entrance
A small park but quite pleasant. It even had a miniature Eiffel Tower in the middle, a creation of the famous Gustav Eiffel himself apparently
It had a little spiral staircase so it had to be climbed! Here we are at the top, it wobbled a little!
Don't look down! Oh, too late
Walking back and working up an appetite for dinner we went into the San Felipe Nero Convent and climbed up to the roof. What a lovely building!
Looking over the rooftops of Sucre to the hills beyond
Exploring the roof of the convent
On the left is the end of the convent and the white wall to the right is a separate building with a big drop between. We both said that, if this was a James Bond movie he would be leaping from one to the other chased by a criminal. It looked very doable!
Over there is, on the left, the government building and, on the right the bell tower of the cathedral, our next destination
And here we are in the cathedral. Very nice place
Todays visit was to the nearby dinosaur footprints rock face. Its in a working limestone quarry where they are making Portland Cement and, on this face in 1994 they uncovered a whole slab containing the worlds largest collection of dinosaur footprints
They are quite impressive from a distance, but recently a new path has been opened to allow us to get right up to them, but only with a guide
Amazing you can see how the mud (as it was then) deformed under their weight
You can see how the animal wandered along what was then a flat beach or shallow lake. It's been tilted to near vertical by the movement of the Pacific plate under the Atlantic plate that raised the Andes mountain chain
Jackie giving an indication of the size of the footprints
The print of a three toed something or other
It'll be one of those, I'll let you decide
There was quite a nice museum attached. Here's a cast of a print they found
Along with some life size models. This one is the largest dinosaur
And just to prove how big it was, there's Jackie walking underneath it
And there's the Loch Ness Monster (with a pair of sunglasses on a flipper!)
Jackie standing on the viewing platform of the Condor Mirador in Puno, with fabulous views over Puno and Lake Titikaka. Brian went a little higher to get the photo
Day 22 Wednesday
We had given ourselves a spare planning day, as on arrival in Puno we both felt so rubbish, but in reality we didn't need it. We'd booked the Peru hop bus to Copacabana, a night on the Isla del Sol, the Peru hop bus to La Paz, a flight La Paz to Sucre and 3 nights in Sucre. So a day to ourselves then.
There'll be a few steps up to the Mirador then. Being a bloke I counted them, 613 there were, plus a few very steep hills before we even started the steps. At 3800m, going up to 4000m altitude that's no joke! Did you know that at 4000m the air density is 66% of that at sea level. That means we have to take 1 and a half breaths for every one we take at sea level. No wonder we get out of breath so easily, hearts beat so much faster, breaths so much more frequent, meaning we have to stop often and walk slowly
We started off early with a walk up to the Condor Mirador which wasn't very far, but was mostly up! A good view though. See our Relive video with more photos: click here. Having gone up the opticians road I decided it was a good idea to get some clip on dark shades for my glasses as the photo reactive ones never seem to go that dark. This wasn't as easy as it sounds, but mission accomplished we popped into a couple of churches for a quick look, though not the impressively domed one as the hearse had just arrived for a funeral!
On to the port then where we were looking forward to another trout lunch. This was easily sorted, though not as many of the restaurants were open as had been on the weekend we still had plenty of choice.
View from the top, Puno and Lake Titikaka. Unseen, 120km away is the other end of the lake in Bolivia. Out on the left, where that hill falls down into the lake is the location of the Uros floating islands
Lots of interaction with Peru hop in the afternoon about leaving our luggage in Copacabana, and where/ how to get Bolivianos ( not on the island) when , just thrown into the conversation was "just keep an eye on your email, there have been blockades today on the Puno to Copacabana road" hmmm. Though this has been going on and off for at least a year and was one of the reasons I was keen to do this trip and border crossing onto Bolivia with Peru hop.
Zooming right in as far as my camera will allow and you can see the floating islands. It's about a third of the way along from the left on the above photo
An evening beer was interrupted by a message saying we were all go, so we went and sorted our overnight bags and out big bags ready for collection at 07.30am.
Also zooming down into Puno, you might just be able to see the brown Cathedral and the Plaza with the yellow and red local government building. Our hotel is also visible on the extreme left, halfway down by a white building. We were very well positioned for seeing everything in the city
Day 23 Thursday
Up for breakfast just after 6.00 only to get an email saying that the blockade was back up, so we wouldn't be leaving at 8.00 but that they had it on good information that we would be able to get through if we left at 14.00. this didn't really gel with our research which said it was a 72 hour protest, of which this was day 2, though it had been clear overnight.
Picture obtained from the Ilave Facebook page showing the protests blocking the only bridge connecting Puno to Copacabana, Bolivia. Oh dear!
We weren't going to get to Copacabana in time to get the ferry to the island, so whatever happened we would have to book something else.
We'll go for another walk then, to another, lower viewpoint over the city. Here's the statue of Manco Capac, founder of the Inca empire who, according to legend, was commanded by the Sun God to emerge from the waters of Lake Titikaka. The ancient inhabitants of the Altiplano believed that the underground caves at this view point led to the Konconcho Temple in Cusco
We went for a little walk to another Mirador, Cerrito Huajspata with a statue of Manco Capac, the founder of the Inca empire, just for something to do. Came across a couple of demonstrations in Puno, adding to our unease. Well, have a good lunch, just in case, not that we really expected to go.
Another fine viewpoint on this rocky outcrop
We did have to decide what to do, a night in Copacabana, and risk tomorrow's bus not arriving so no onward travel to La Paz or straight through to La Paz giving us two and a half days in somewhere we hadn't really planned to come as it sounds a bit scary!
Round to the left, zooming right in with my camera, was the first Puma viewpoint we visited on our Sillustani trip a couple of days ago
We were collected at 13.30, and taken to a big bus. We were told how to use the QR code to fill out the customs declaration for the border crossing, it all seemed to be happening. We decided to go straight to La Paz, well we have a flight out of here, so booked another night in the hotel. I had checked with the guide on the bus that we were going to La Paz, but I just checked again, having realised that despite our email exchange we hadn't changed our booking officially on the site. She was on the phone, so fingers crossed.
Here we are on the bus heading to Bolivia approaching the bridge at Ilave that was blockaded. We were delighted to see it clear and we had no problems passing over it. Our guide on the bus was relieved too. During the day we had explored other options, there is a catamaran service across the lake to the Bolivia border that runs when this bridge is blocked. We'd missed todays as it left at 6:00am and there was unlikely to be one tomorrow. A night time taxi ride at US$145 was considered. Flights were out of the question as we'd have to travel back to Arequipa, get a flight to Lima and a connection to La Paz. Our best option appeared to stick it out and hope we got through. Thankfully we did, but at the expense of our visit to Copacabana and the Isla del Sol. Straight on to La Paz for us
The border crossing was very easy, stamp out of Peru (even though we weren't stamped in at the airport) show the customs declaration, and stamp into Bolivia. Change some money with the old lady by the side of the road, who appeared to give us a stunning exchange rate, and back on the bus with a new guide.
The arch is the Bolivian border that we had to walk through. Our bus and all luggage went separately
Short journey to Copacabana where the la Paz bus was waiting, only to realise how close we'd come to messing up. With us, as officially changed by the Peruvian guide, the bus was now completely full. It could so easily have gone horribly wrong, or cost us a second not used night anyway. But we were off.
We'd already had our passports stamped out of Peru by Peruvian authorities before we went through the arch. Next we went into the building on the left to be stamped into Bolivia, then the building by the sign to show our online customs forms that we filled in on the bus and we're in. Just wait for the bus to come through so we can get back on and continue our journey
The only stop was at Taquina where we went across the straits on one ferry while the bus went across on another. Ferry for the bus is a loose term, it's absolutely amazing that vehicles ever get across, but it did, with all our luggage! Another few hours (we'd lost an hour with a clock change at the border) and we were in La Paz by 22.00. Dropped off at our hotel which happens to be in the same building as the Bolivia Hop office and into our second room. We rejected the first, it hadn't been changed, so we have a fab view but are right under the restaurant with its very noisy chairs.
This was the narrow bit of Lake Titikaka we had to go over in Bolivia to continue our journey. We all got off the bus and went over in an old motorboat, the bus had to get on one of those flat ferry boats to get across
Day 24 Friday
Brian has woken up with a slightly dodgy tummy. I'm fine, but this is a little odd as the only thing we've eaten since lunch yesterday was some popcorn and nuts on the bus which we both ate. Perhaps it's altitude, though we are only 200m higher than Puno.
We finally got to La Paz and our hotel room in the Iskay Boutique Hotel and this is the view from our bedroom window on the 7th floor. We might have been tired, but the view in real life is astounding and captivating. What a city!
We have some plans for trips, but they depend on Brian feeling better so we've made enquiries at the booking office, I've swapped a book at the first book exchange I've seen, we've had a little wander, lunch and ATM and are just waiting for our 16.00 walking tour.
Next day out with Johnny our guide. First stop, the Witches Market
Johnny our guide was waiting good and early, as were we, having booked our tour for tomorrow.
Although it is a tourist attraction it's roots are in their ancient Pacha Mama religion and, above the door are dead baby Llama and llama foetus' that are used in the elaborate Challa ceremonies
He didn't quite look local and when he opened his mouth he definitely wasn't local. He was from Canada. We exchanged life stories in the 20 minutes before official start time. He'd been travelling through central and south America for a few years when he got stuck here for COVID. Nobody else turned up so we were the only 2 for this tour so weren't we lucky?
A typical offering to be burnt at the challa ceremony. Each one is different and is made up following your interview with the witch about what you want from the ceremony, money, children, a girlfriend, relief from pain etc
He started off with explaining about the witches market, just round the corner and one of the main spots in La Paz. The further down you go the more touristy it gets, but at our end, the witches are still practicing. You make your appointment to either get your coca leaves read which sounds just like getting your tea leaves read, or you go and have a consultation to get a pack to give you everything you need for your burnt offering to Pacha Mama (mother earth). What goes into this depends on what you want, health, wealth, children etc. As requests get more serious so do the offerings, sweets, pretend money and real llama fetuses or real baby llama! Don't worry, they are not killed but are all natural deaths, they told us killing is not good karma for Pacha Mama.
Next stop on a bridge over the main road through La Paz in its usual busy state. Below this road is a big river that flows through the valley in the centre of La Paz. As the city grew the river got more polluted from gold processing and industrial production, becoming very unhealthy. Space was also at a premium, so someone had the bright idea of covering the river over and making a big dual carriageway. It seemed to answer both problems. Incidentally, in the days of Spanish colonialism, when there was a river here, the wealthy Spanish lived on the right hand side, so the buildings are big and of European architecture with straight, wide avenues, on the left were the indigenous people who lived as they pleased, so are characterised by narrow, twisty roads
You then have a challa, a party, where everyone gets involved, knows what you want, makes offerings of coca leaves, sugar, cinnamon and alcohol at the four corners of the offering which is then burned to ash. This can take some time, depending on the size of your llama, even though it is completely doused in raw alcohol. The following day the ashes are buried to feed Pacha Mama and you hope your wish comes true.
This is Calle Jaen, formerly one of La Paz's exclusive streets in colonial times. The wealthy and powerful lived here
He spent ages explaining all this, I did wonder if we were ever going out, but he didn't want to be doing it in front of the shops. Really very considerate and very interesting. As it happened there were no consultations going on but we could walk past and take photos.
Murillo Plaza in front of, on the right, the magnificent Basilica of Our Lady of La Paz and, on the left the Presidential palace and government buildings, the old colonial building in front and the new high rise modern tower block behind
We continued down into the centre of the valley at the Plaza de Armas which is a work in progress. We assumed they were just beautifying or something but apparently the whole of the centre of the valley is actually a river they have built over which apparently is in danger of collapsing, so serious work is going on.
Inside the magnificent Basilica. Sturdy stone pillars with a huge dome, built in 1835
We then walked up through the colonial streets to Calle Jaen where the well to do used to live, passed the house of Murillo who started the first revolution, which actually didn't work, and he was hung in what is now Murillo plaza, but did pave the way for a second and successful freedom revolution not long after.
Fabulous altar and dome
We continued to Murillo Plaza where the government buildings are, traditional fronts but with huge modern extensions behind and going up. He then told us all about the political situation which lost me a bit. Brian is going to write this....
Looking back to the huge pipe organ
Brian's bit on the political history as told by Johnny, our guide. It's in green so, if you're not interested, skip to the end where the text turns purple again:
Our political history of Bolivia with Johnny centred around Juan Moralis a charismatic former president of Bolivia. He was born in 1959 and was the son of a poor indigenous coca farmer, but went on to become president, something that was unheard of.
To the left of the Plaza Murillo is the legislative palace, again, the old colonial building in front, the modern tower block behind
He was elected president in 2005 after spells in the military and trades unions and entered politics in 1995, working his way up. He had a working people's appeal and, on entering office he did a lot of good for the indigenous people, who number between 55 and 70% of the population, introducing new laws and making everyone equal under the law regardless of race or creed. Many of his reforms were hugely popular and moved the country forward. He was re-elected in 2009 and continued his work under great popularity.
Close up of the clock on the legislative building. It was Juan Moralis that ordered this, I've forgotten precisely why he chose to do it now
Things started to go wrong towards the end of his second term as Bolivia's constitution only allows a president to remain in office for two terms, so it should have been time for him to go. However, he went onto state television to announce he was going to put a vote to the senators to amend the constitution to allow three terms. It was very unconstitutional and rumours began to spread of fears of a repeat of the Venezuela situation where Hugo Chavez remained in power as a dictator and ruined the country. However his amendment passed in dubious circumstances, with rumours of senators being bought off, he stood again and was re-elected. His third term was relatively successful although rumours of corruption were now rife.
Me 'n 'er with the guards outside the presidential palace
Towards the end of his third term, it should have been the end for him, except he went on television to say that he has now only served one presidential term under the new constitution, the two terms before were under the old constitution so they didn't count. He was allowed to stand to another two terms he announced. This caused uproar as corruption and thoughts of a dictatorship were now rife.
It was at this time that Johnny, our guide came to live in Bolivia and he remembers election night very well. Everyone was glued to their TV's watching the results. The winning candidate must get at least more than 10% of the vote over their opponent and, as counting continued, it was apparent that they were neck and neck with no clear leader. Suddenly all TV coverage was blacked out and only regular programmes were available with no news of the election. 24 hours later it was announced that Juan Moralis had won!
A short video of the changing of the guards outside the presidential palace
This caused extreme anger in La Paz with riots and killings as the country descended into violence. He took office but, as the situation in the country deteriorated the police went on TV to say they no longer supported him. Sometime later the army too went on TV to say they no longer supported him. Realising his situation was now untenable he fled the country to Mexico, leaving the country leaderless.
A right leaning politician was the next in line to become president without an election and she took office and tried to undo a lot of the equality laws Moralis had brought in. Immensley unpopular she too was ousted and is now in prison. New elections were called where a socialist president, like Moralis was elected so he was thus allowed to re-enter the country where, until now, he has kept a low profile.
Plaza Sucre aka San Pedro Plaza. The unassuming building through the trees is the infamous San Pedro prison. See Jackie's text below
Fresh elections are due next year and Juan Moralis has put his name forward as the next president and will appear on the ballot paper. There is huge unrest in La Paz, and probably the rest of the country at the prospect he may 'win' and become president again as he is regarded as a very corrupt man with delusions of becoming a dictator and draining the country's limited wealth for his own ends.
We are quite intrigued and will definitely be watching the results of this election next year. It's a lesson in how easily a country can descend into a dictatorship through one charismatic leader who craves power. Adolf Hitler was another such character and, without naming any names there are more modern examples.
Our second walking/bus/cable car tour of La Paz today with Veronica, our guide for the day. This is Laikakota viewpoint with fabulous views of La Paz
One more stop after this was to Sucre (our next stop and official capital of Bolivia) Plaza, more commonly known as San Pedro square. Called this because of the unassuming building on one side that is San Pedro Prison. One of the most lawless prisons on earth. Guards don't go beyond the courtyard, the whole place is run by the prisoners! Top prisoner takes the papers of every new prisoner and asks them where they want to be assigned. Do they have money to buy a room, bedding, food? If no they are down one end spending nights cuddling together on the floor in the corridors, if yes the world is their oyster. It's a town in there with restaurants, laundry, cocaine factory..... You know, the normal stuff.... There is also a school as the rich prisoners also have their wives and children in there with them!
Johnny then went on to tell us about Thomas Mcfadden, an Englishman, who became the subject of a book called Marching Powder.
This is looking straight south from the viewpoint, towards the posh end of the city
This is the synopsis of that book from Amazon: San Pedro is Bolivia's most notorious prison. Small-time drug smuggler Thomas McFadden found himself on the inside. Marching Powder is the story of how he navigated this dark world of gangs, drugs and corruption to come out on top.
Thomas found himself in a bizarre world, the prison reflecting all that is wrong with South American society. Prisoners have to pay an entrance fee and buy their own cells (the alternative is to sleep outside and die of exposure), prisoners' wives and children often live inside too, high quality cocaine is manufactured and sold from the prison.
Thomas ended up making a living by giving backpackers tours of the prison – he became a fixture on the backpacking circuit and was named in the Lonely Planet guide to Bolivia. When he was told that for a bribe of $5000 his sentence could be overturned, it was the many backpackers who'd passed through who sent him the money. Written by lawyer Rusty Young, Marching Powder – sometimes shocking, sometimes funny – is a riveting story of survival..
Looking back up the valey and there are houses built in every conceivable space. The black building in the centre is the new legislative building and the grey tower above it is the new presidential building. The horizon on the left marks the beginning of a new (30/40 years old) city of El Alto. The airport is up there at 4000m from which we'll depart tomorrow on our flight to Sucre
The book unsurprisingly was very embarrassing for the Bolivians and has been banned here. Although the tours were stopped, the cocaine factory closed down, and the bribing of guards by prisoners to let them out for the evening or weekend or whatever else they wanted also stopped, it appears that all that has actually changed is the tours, everything else is as it was!
What a stunning tour with such a different outlook than we would have got from a native. Only problem, it's a free tour with tips, how much to give him? See our Relive video with photos: click here
Just following on round to the right from the previous photo to show how the city is built into a river valley
Day 25 Saturday
How can our tour this morning possibly compare to yesterday? Oh well, we've paid our £14 so we might as well go. We arrived at our meeting place and met a couple of guys from Belgium, very easy to talk to. Then our guide Veronica turned up. She was expecting 2 more but after giving them 5 minutes we started without them. First stop, the witches market. Our hearts sank, not because we went, we were expecting it, but because she didn't explain anything half as well as Johnny did. Oh well. Then she had to dash off to find the third couple, but that was fine and we all hopped on our bus. Off to Murillo Plaza for a much more traditional look round than we had with Johnny, we went into the cathedral, watched the changing of the guard outside the presidential palace, and were told nothing of Bolivian politics!
A short stop enroute to sample saltenas. There they are in the cabinet. You can have spicy or normal. We had spicy, but they were a bit weird, very sweet pastry and a gravy inside that was guaranteed to end up down your front!
She did explain about the river, though according to her there are 364 rivers and tributaries under La Paz which does make it amazing that it hasn't washed away. We drove through the colonial section we'd walked yesterday and up to a view point which was well worth a look. That was our city tour, part one of the trip.
Jackie trying the cinnamon ice cream (or as we know it, sorbet, there's no cream in it, just water and cinnamon!)
Part two was Valley de la Luna, renamed by Neil Armstrong from Valley of the cactus. We had a couple of stops enroute for snacks, firstly for saltenas, a pasty thing that has quite a lot of gravy in, so there is a knack to eating them, nibble off a corner and suck out the gravy, if you are no good at eating saltenas you are no good at kissing....! Although we both quite liked the filling we didn't really like the pastry which was a bit disappointing. We then stopped for cinnamon ice-cream which was actually a sorbet which I enjoyed more than Brian did. It's things like this though that really make a tour much more enjoyable.
Valley of the moon. What a strange place. It looked like mud that had been eroded by water, but it was in fact slightly harder than that
We arrived at Valley de la Luna to find that the temperature had gone up hugely. It was a really weird landscape which didn't look that sound, but it's been there a long time. A few minutes in we came to a junction with a choice of 15 minutes or 45 minutes. Guess which Brian picked? Off we went, though I'm not sure everyone else would have picked 45, we did it in 30 and I think everyone enjoyed it.
There we are, the nice grandfather! Can you see him?
Part 3 of the trip was cable cars. There are 10 lines with 26 stations which were completed only 10 years ago. It makes absolutely perfect sense when you look at the layout of the city with La Paz in the bowl and El Alto 400m higher. The steep, narrow, winding streets are hideously crowded, unsafe and full of pollution.
Going down
We went on two of the lines, the green and sky blue, which seemed to take us a really long way giving us amazing views all the way. I'm just glad I didn't see the lightening just ahead, though I did feel the wind!
Turtle Hill? No, we couldn't see it either!
The closest we got to politics on this tour was the Chollita lady in our second car, she had no English, so we are not sure how much Veronica translated, but we definitely got the impression that Juan Morales is not the popular choice next year!
You and I. Well, it had to be done
As if to prove the value of the cable cars the bus was stuck in traffic so we went to have a little look and the market before being dropped off at the Plaza de Armas from where she was taking the third, late, couple back to the witches market that they missed! A second really good tour that complemented yesterday's totally.
Veronica explaining about the medicinal qualities of the plants
A quick drink and cake and we are hoping that Brian feels well enough to go for a curry tonight!
We're on a bridge and we're looking straight down through the bridge into a very deep hole. Looks nothing here, but it went down a long way
Mother moon? That big rock apparently precariously perched on top of that mud tower
Now there I think you can get more of an impression of depth. Don't drop your camera down there!
Onwards through the valley of the moon. The Belgian chap in front was a lot of fun
Don't look down!
We don't get many photos together, so when the offers there...
Back to La Paz and this was the first of the cable cars over the city, the green line
There are ten cable cars, built by Doppelmayr, a Swiss or Austrian manufacturer of ski cable cars. Total cost of it all was about US$700,000,000
But it makes perfect sense in a dense city built in a valley with steep sides. That's one of the pylons taking very little space and causing the minimum of disruption
You just might have cable cars drifting past your eighth floor window, but hey. They look nasty storm clouds and it did rain, but not until the evening
Heading down to the station, we got another lift up to a market where we met our bus and headed back to our hotel
