La Paz, Bolivia

It has been a while since we updated our website but today we have some spare time...

From Sucre we took a bus to La Paz. This time we decided to book a ´cama´ bus, which means you can adjust your chairs to an almost horizontal position. Nice one! The bus ride took less time than we expected so we arrived a bit earlier in La Paz. The hostel was said to be very close to the bus terminal, but it still took us a while to find it. The directions given were not very clear... When we finally got there we met Michelle and Cedric at the front door of the hostel. They were on the same bus trip to the Atacama Desert in Chile. At the hostel we first had a breakfast before checking in. The hostel is great: an all you can eat pancake breakfast and mate (herbal) tea.

Each day we walked around different districts. The streets are often steep and narrow and everywhere they are selling stuff in little kiosks on the streets. We visited the cathedral and the coca musem, which was really interesting and surprisingly informative. On the first evening we had a wonderful dinner at a steakhouse where Emma had her first llama steak. She absolutely loved it. The next day we planned a day trip to Tiahuanaco, an old Inca temple. Packed in the minibus like sardines in a can we headed towards Tiahuanaco. When we reached the upper ridge of the valley we could see how big La Paz actually is. An amazing view...

When we got to the village we got off the bus and walked the last kilometer to the site of the temple. When we entered the archeological site we noticed the presence of lots of soldiers. After asking one of them what is was for we discovered the president Evo Morales was paying a visit to the site. He is following us around our trip! We saw him landing in his helicopter and doing a speech for lots of indigenous people. After he left we had lots of time to explore the site. And it is a truly amazing place. All the time I tried to imagine how it would have looked like at the time of the Inca´s. The only minor thing was , in my opinion, that they moved the sungate. It used to be in a straight line with a monolite and the main gate. After we visited the site we had a look at the different museums near the site. On our way back in the return bus we noticed how often the drivers honk. Honking can mean "Get outta my way!" or "I´m coming round a blind corner, watch out!" or "Hey anyone need a ride?" or maybe they are just compulsive honkers?

Because we had to get to Cusco for our Spanish lessons we booked a bus trip to Puno for a visit to the famous floating islands at Lake Titicaca. On the day of our departure we got to the terminal and found out there was a taxi and bus strike for 3 days. Perfecto! We decided it would be worth a try to get a flight from La Paz airport to Cusco. We hopped into one of the remaining taxis and made our way to the airport. Since only 10% of the taxis work for an union the other 90% were on strike. (Afterwards we found out the strike was about a new law against drink and driving) We arrived at the airport and booked a flight to Cusco. But that would only be the next morning. So we had to wait at the airport for about 20 hours... And sleeping atLa Paz airport is one of the things I wouldn´t recommend to anyone. The airport is tiny and abandoned at night. The small group of people who had to stay the night joined up at one corner and tried to get some sleep. Emma eventually managedto get some sleep whereas I stayed awake all night and copleted half a Sudoko book.

Our trip to Puno and the famous islands probably has to wait until after our trip to Machu Picchu. The most striking thing we discovered in La Paz is the amount of cars, buses and trucks in the city. And because of all this traffic there is a smog in the centre for most of the day. 3 days of La Paz is certainly enough to see most of the places and not get killed by the fumes... But an amazing city it is!