¡Hola y bienvenidos a La Paz!
I have been to many cities all over the world, but none of them had a setting as spectacular as
La Paz, don't you think so?
Basically, La Paz is a big hueco (hole) in the 4.100m high Altiplano. Thus the city spans from 4.300m down to 3.100m and is surrounded by the mountains of the Cordillera Real whose peaks reach heights over 6.400m. Let me show you this spectacular setting in motion picture:
Can a capital city be possibly situated any more spectacular?- I don't think so. So whereever you are in La Paz you have these amazing views of the houses "glued" to the walls surrounding the city and the high snow capped mountains above... Awesome!
Let me give you a short impression of the historic center of the town. It consists many picturesque steep streets leading down to the center of the "big hole". Of course, you always have to add the amazing background ;)
From time to time the narrow streets open up to beautiful colonial plazas wtih cathedrals and palaces, which perfectly fit into the scenery outside
and also look amazing inside!
When you stroll around town and enter picturesque colonial courtyards you will discover many things, such as the
Musoe de Coca (magnify the pic below)
or, as usual, coloful markets. You have already seen lots of pics of Bolivian markets, so let me skip the fruit, meat, and vegetables and go to a special market in La Paz, the "witchcraft market." here you can buy lots of mystical things originating from the ancient Aymaran culture, such as llama foetus (brings good luck and fortune for house builders)
or stuffed llamas and condors, Anaconda skin, tiger and leopard coats etc. A real freakshow!
The markets of La Paz are endless and so I took the opportunity to visit a small electronics market where I got incredibly cheap spare parts for my camera. Just look at the different items they sell there... you don't wanna know where they come from, respectively where they are stolen from.
I really got lost in the markets , ate lots of unknown food, and strolled around for hours until it got dark and I had to find my way out of the markets and back to the hostel.
The hostel that I took for the first night included a micro brewery and so I had fun party night in La Paz. The next day I got up early, changed my hostel to a more comfortable hotel ('ause my mother arrived that day), and got a nice empanadas breakfast (here they are called salteñnas) fresh from the oven.
During the day I strolled around town, discovered different neighbourhoods,
crossed gorges marking the bottom of the "big hole",
and took nice pictures capturing the moments of playing kids
and playing adults, always with the incredible scenery in the background!
In the afternoon, I took a small collectivo to the outskirts of town situated at 2500m, from where I had a completely different perspective on La Paz (magnify the picture below):
My destination was a beautiful and touristic landscape called Valle de la Luna, another one. One of the first things I saw when I arrived there was the Bolivian military! Do you see the sniper below aiming for a headshot?
No just kidding, this is a Japanese tourist :D
The Valle de la Luna is a small valley made of spectacular sedimentary rock formations with cactii and colorful rocky mountains in the background:
I strolled around through this scenic and beautifuk place, which as actually not that spectacular after having seen similar landscapes in Cachi, San Pedro de Atacama, Uyuni, Tupiza, .... However, a Bolivian indio playing flute on top of one of the eroded rocks made the difference and added a special atmosphere to the place:
Of course, as a tourist in Bolivia I cannot resist the national drug, the coca, and decided to get a real "Coca-Cola":
The effects were... hmmm... let's call them intersting ;)
No honestly, besides the bitter taste (quite good actually), there were no effects at all. After the
Valle de la Luna I strolled around the nearby town of
Mallasa which looked a little bit like my hometown, and indeed I found the
Hotel Oberland there
and the same leisure activities as at home, such as watching the local Sunday afternoon soccer game and drinking beer ;)
So another day full of discoveries in La Paz ended in a beautiful sunset high above the city:
Since the sun just touches one side of the "big whole", you may find a nice sunset there and complete darkness on the other side, an intersting sunset. See yourself:
So this was my second day alone in the capital of Bolivia, and it was a grat day. But honestly I am kind of tired and exhausted hiking around the steep streets of La Paz's neighbourhoods...
But I wasn't allowed to go to bed or to go out for partying that night... Instead I went to the airport and 1.00 am and picked up my mother who made after a 30 hour journey finally to La Paz.
Welcome to Bolivia, Mum! Let us start the day with some salteñas, there will be a lot to see this day :)
On the first day my Mum arrived we took a tour to Tiwanaku, the so-called mother of all pre-Columbian cultures, such as the Maya, Atztecas, or the Incas. Our tour led us out of La Paz through the poor (almost slum-like) suburb El Alto, which was despite its poverty an interesting place.
Unfortunately, or luckily, this day all public transport in El Alto was striking and there were lots of road barriers and even some burning cars. So our little tourist bus was forced to drive endless loops through El Alto, through fields, and even river beds to find a way out of town.
We were not the only ones who tried o sneak through the road barriers. As you can see lots of vehicles got stuck or even "grounded" when attempting to cross small riverbeds instead of the blocked bridges. So actually, the strike was a really spectacular experience!
Finally, we made it out of town and drove through fertile fields (at 4000m) to Tiwanaku, always with the scenic Cordillera Real in the background:
I don't want to bore you with all the facts that we learnt about the city of Tiwanaku and its inhabitants. You can read it all at Wikipedia, if you want to ;) Just some nice pictures from the ruins...
This spectacular historic gate is the place that the current president (Evo Morales), the first indigenuous president of any South American country, chose for his inauguration:
The tour to Tiwanaku was really interesting and amazing, but after 12 hours also a little exhausting.
So it was no wonder that I fell asleep on the way back to La Paz...
... but as soon as we reached the "big hole" in the sunset with the following beautiful and spectacular view, I was immediately awake again. Is there any more spectacular setting of any capital in the world?
The next day we got up early because we wanted to cycle "the most dangerous road of the world down." This road has the most accidents per meter world-wide and winds its way down from 4700 m to 1100 m along a spectacular scenery with waterfalls and cliffs every meter. So you literally cycle down from the glacier zone to the tropical jungle. The ride up to la cumbre, the starting point, took an hour from La Paz.
Once we were up there, at 4700m, we got really fancy and modern downhill bikes, protection all over, and rain suits.
To be honest, I felt a little over-equipped. But all the gear, especially the downhill bikes, promised a lot of fun... So let the ride begin!
The first 35 km (of 86 km in total) were the boring part, a curvy but paved road. Nevertheless, reaching a speed of more than 70 km/h and with various slow trucks on the road, it was fun, too.
Then we made a turn to the actual camino de muerte, which was a narrow gravel road leading along steep cliffs on the left-hand side (with a vertical 400 m drop!), through waterfalls and dense vegetation.
As you can see, the road itself wasn't too dangerous if you're a little used to mountain biking.
The scenery, however, was spectacular, right Mum?
Fortunately, one of our two guides was a former BMX pro. He did all kinds of spectacular jumps (next to a 400 m drop) and he went down really really fast! Besides two Australians I was the only one to keep up with him, and so I had the downhill of my life, both in terms of speed, spectacular setting of the road, and of course the surrounding scenery!
We were a fast and homogeneous group of eight riders plus two guides and pretty much overtook anybody else. Simply the rid of our life:
Thus we had time for a long lunch break right above a spectacular cliff.
After some Coca-Cola, coca leaves, and sandwiches we got ready for the jungle part of our ride! Don't I look really dangerous?
I stayed a minute on a turn higher up and took pictures of our group cycling through waterfalls. As you can see this is a no-slip-track, once slipping away you dive all the way down to the valley ;)
One of our guides also took a lot of pictures and movies of us riding through riverbeds and waterfalls always along the cliff...
How do you like that now?
Finally, after 3600 m of downhill cycling we made it to the tropical valley.
And guess what expected us there
besides llamas?
Right, some cold beer
and a pool!
We stayed down there in the tropical yungas for two or three hours, among coca plantations and monkeys, and had a great time. Can you imagine that our day started almost in the snow? It took us three hours, 30 g of coca leaves and 2 liters of beer to get back to La Paz. One the way up we also took some scenic pics of our downhill along the camino de muerte. Not a bad ride, right?
So to make it short my/our stay in La Paz was great, right Mum?
But we are also looking forward to escape the urban and smoggy part of Bolivia and move into the beautiful and spiritual highlands close to the Peruian border, the Lago Liticaca (Aymaran for "puma rock lake")
So expect some more adventures of me and my Mum ;)
Nos vemos!
Florian
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