Lady of Peace

Day 50-53: La Paz, Bolivia. “Breathtaking! It literally has been built on the side of the mountain”, Karen exclaimed as we descended from the flat sparse plains of the sprawling city of El Alto and got our first glimpse of Bolivia's capital city clinging to the sides of the canyon and spilling spectacularly into the valley below. It had been a long night and we were both exhausted, but the sight before us rekindled our spirits and despite our tiredness, gave us the taste for exploration yet again.

The overnight journey from Uyuni had not been with out incident. The road just south of Potosi had collapsed due to the torrential rain falls. A main thoroughfare between the nations capital and the south-west of the county, we had to wait our turn as the procession of northbound and southbound buses gingerly squeezed past each other with just inches to spare on what remained of the broken road, adding another couple of hours to our scheduled 11 hour bus journey.

La Paz, or to give it its original name, La Ciudad de Nuestra Señora de La Paz (the City of Our Lady of Peace) is dizzying in every respect. Not only for its well publicised altitude (12,000 feet above sea level; making it the highest capital city in the world), but also for it's quirky beauty: Women sporting long black plaits, bowler hats and vivid mantas attend to steaming pots or sell everything from fruit and vegetables to designer shoes from their make-shift street stalls whilst the menfolk, negotiating the heavy traffic and its fumes, push overladen trolleys through the steep streets and alleys that wind their way ever skywards.

“Camina lentito, come poquito…y duerme solito”, the locals tell you (walk slowly, eat only a little bit…and sleep by your poor little self). Check into any five star hotel in La Paz and amongst the usual paraphernalia, like bathrobes and fluffy slippers, you'll also be offered free oxygen for the duration of your stay! Such luxuries though were unavailable at our £8 a night hostel and so Karen and I had to make do with the traditional coca leaves remedy to ward off the effects of this crazy altitude. In Bolivia's biggest city though, we no longer had to make do with merely chewing the coca, for here you can get coca tea, coca sweets, coca liqueur and even coca ice-cream!

The city's diverse restaurant scene coupled with its low cost of living meant that after many days, Karen and I could actually find something else to eat other than llama, pizza or llama pizza. And La Paz seems to have the lot: Japanese, Thai, Moroccan, French... We even found a great little 'English Curry House' (now I always thought curry originated from the Indian subcontinent, but if the Bolivians are happy to credit England with the invention of one of the world's favourite dishes then that's fine by me)!

In an attempt to escape the city's choking pollution for a few hours we took a ride to the 'ghost' ski resort of Chacaltaya, just a couple of hours drive to the north of the bustling city centre. A strange and eerie place, this used to be the location of the world's highest pistes at nearly 18,000 feet; a popular destination for La Paz's elite during the 1980's when a huge leisure infrastructure was constructed in the high Andes to support the growing needs of Bolivia's ski-set. Since then though, in an all too familiar tale of global warming, the glaciers that provided the snow have all retreated from this high mountain until, in 2009, they disappeared completely. Now, as Karen and I trekked these cold and windy mountains, all that remains of this once thriving winter sports centre are a couple of rusting ski lifts and few derelict buildings, presumably the location of Chacaltaya's bygone apres-ski scene.

But it's La Paz's chaotic market scenes that will stay with me as my over-riding memory of this fascinating city. A sensory indulgence; the colourful, overflowing stalls, the aroma of incense mingling with the smell of fresh salteñas cooking on an open fire, the cries of the street sellers and the acrid taste of pollution, caused by the incessant traffic, drying the back of your throat. Looking around the Witches Market, it looks like this years 'must have' gift from La Paz are going to be dried llama foetuses. Stall after stall has baskets of these macabre Bolivian icons, the result of miscarriages, still births or even the religious slaughter of pregnant llamas which are offered as gifts of good-luck and friendship within the local community. So if you have one of those friends that just has everything and you can't think what to get them for their next birthday or anniversary drop me a line and I'll see if I can get you a couple before I leave!