La Paz

Hanna and I arrived at La Paz at 5 30am to find that the hostels we wanted to stay in were all full. We left our bags at a hostel and went to find some food. At a 24 hour restaurant we ordered coffees and breakfast but then two men (one Bolivian, one Mexican) came and sat with us. They bought us drinks (whiskey and coke) and chatted to us for a couple of hours before paying for everything and a taxi back to our hostel. We were apprehensive at first but they turned out to be really nice chaps.

We eventually got a hostel, moved the next day to a nicer one and have been there for a few days. The hostel is Irish owned and is one of the best I´ve stayed in here. They serve bacon and eggs, first I´ve had since Australia!

The city itself is big, dirty and crazy. The houses sprawl all the way up the surrounding hills. It seems so silly to have a city at 3700m but it seems to be working out alright. The altitude hasn´t caused me any real problems so far although a few friends have had mild altitude sickness. Chewing coca leaves in Potosi didn´t seem to make much difference so I have just been taking it easy.

So touristy stuff... We have been a few times to the witches market where you can buy loads of stuff cheap. They sell preserved baby llamas which you are supposed to hang above the front door of your house for luck. We have been to a few lookouts and all of that, but the highlight for me was the quad biking.

We ran into an Israeli couple the other day (you run into people you know everywhere here... it´s crazy!) that both Hanna and I knew but from different places. They told us that you could go quad biking in valle de la luna (valley of the moon). We went the next day, got kitted up and rode quads for 2 hours through this huge valley! The views were amazing and we went through small communities where little Bolivian kids waved at you, farmers stared and malnourished cattle remained indifferent. It was great fun and something that I would do again if I had more time here.

WAIT! A window just broke outside the internet cafe and there´s shattered glass all over the road... OK no problems, no one copped any glass.

A popular activity for tourists here is to ride mountain bikes down ´the world´s most dangerous road´. On the day we arrived, an English traveler went off the edge, fell 60m and died later in hospital (or on the way, no one is really sure). A French girl got hit by a truck about a month ago. We decided that it wasn´t worth dying for some nice views.

Tomorrow Hanna and I are parting ways which will be a bit sad, it was good to have someone to travel with after travelling alone for the first part of my trip. I am going to Copacabana to see Lake Titicaca with some French friends that we have been hanging out with here in La Paz. Hanna is catching a bus (36 hours) back to Santiago to catch her plane back to Germany.

Then Peru!