We arrived in La Paz from Copacabana last Wednesday. Buses leave town about 1.30pm, and head through the hills following Lake Titicaca until they reach its narrowest point. Here you have to get off and take a small passenger boat for about 10 minutes whilst the bus goes separately on a barge. It's an interesting break to the journey!
We reached La Paz at what the time seemed like the start of evening rush hour (about 4.30pm) but as we sat enjoying a glass of wine later in the evening and saw the traffic outside we soon learnt the chaos we had seen was normal everyhour of the day. The roads and streets here are with the exception of Sundays, constantly busy. Imagine the crowds and traffic of Londons Oxford Street everywhere!
The city itself is an ecellctic mix of the old and new, high skyscrapers, flanked by colonial style buildings. Modern middle-class business folk wander the same streets as campesinos selling fruit and all manner of other goods on the pavements; on the main road to our hostel I have seen fruit, remote controls, kitchen equipment and children's toys being sold, Delboy eat your heart out. We have also been offered 'fossils' to buy numerous times, quite frankly they could just be rocks or a bit of dried llama poo. Mt. Illamani (6402m) looms spectacularly in the background of La Paz and occasionally you can catch a glimpse through the hotchpotch of buildings. There are markets a plently but we have been avoiding buying things in the relatively early days of our travels as we will only have to lug it around for months and quite frankly I've no desire to add a llama patterned jumper to my micro wardrobe just yet.
Our first mission here was to head to immigration and extend our visa, you are only given 30 days on arrival, which with Christmas holidays and potential delays due to the rainy season we were worried might not be quite enough for our travel plans. Once we had found immigration, (it wasn't quite in the spot either of our maps showed us) we were told we needed copies of various pages from our passport and our green visa slip. Thankfully, this was easy enough to do for about $0.20 as there are photocopying places everywhere. Once we'd got our copies, it was a 5 minute job at the immigration office to get another 60 days (more than enough) and we were off to explore the rest of La Paz. We settled on lunch in the lonely planets recommendation for a splurge (now and then we can afford to in Bolivia), Restaurant Vienna. It was an interesting people watching experience, lots of suited ex-pats and businessmen, but the food was average and the decor a time warp (pink tablecloths etc). I was particularly amused by the signed poster of Arnie S in the ladies loos, posing in his muscle days in front of the Sydney Opera House.
We reached La Paz at what the time seemed like the start of evening rush hour (about 4.30pm) but as we sat enjoying a glass of wine later in the evening and saw the traffic outside we soon learnt the chaos we had seen was normal everyhour of the day. The roads and streets here are with the exception of Sundays, constantly busy. Imagine the crowds and traffic of Londons Oxford Street everywhere!
The city itself is an ecellctic mix of the old and new, high skyscrapers, flanked by colonial style buildings. Modern middle-class business folk wander the same streets as campesinos selling fruit and all manner of other goods on the pavements; on the main road to our hostel I have seen fruit, remote controls, kitchen equipment and children's toys being sold, Delboy eat your heart out. We have also been offered 'fossils' to buy numerous times, quite frankly they could just be rocks or a bit of dried llama poo. Mt. Illamani (6402m) looms spectacularly in the background of La Paz and occasionally you can catch a glimpse through the hotchpotch of buildings. There are markets a plently but we have been avoiding buying things in the relatively early days of our travels as we will only have to lug it around for months and quite frankly I've no desire to add a llama patterned jumper to my micro wardrobe just yet.
Our first mission here was to head to immigration and extend our visa, you are only given 30 days on arrival, which with Christmas holidays and potential delays due to the rainy season we were worried might not be quite enough for our travel plans. Once we had found immigration, (it wasn't quite in the spot either of our maps showed us) we were told we needed copies of various pages from our passport and our green visa slip. Thankfully, this was easy enough to do for about $0.20 as there are photocopying places everywhere. Once we'd got our copies, it was a 5 minute job at the immigration office to get another 60 days (more than enough) and we were off to explore the rest of La Paz. We settled on lunch in the lonely planets recommendation for a splurge (now and then we can afford to in Bolivia), Restaurant Vienna. It was an interesting people watching experience, lots of suited ex-pats and businessmen, but the food was average and the decor a time warp (pink tablecloths etc). I was particularly amused by the signed poster of Arnie S in the ladies loos, posing in his muscle days in front of the Sydney Opera House.
We have just spent a few relaxing days in Corioco, in the Jungas 2 hours outside La Paz. It's a bit of an enclave for the middle classes of La Paz to escape too and there are a fair few European expats running hostels and restaurants. There is a bit of a hippie, Eco vibe going on too.
We set off on Friday morning. To get there, the choice is a minivan or minibus ride shared with others, or a very expensive taxi ride. We took the minibus option and bought a ticket in advance from a local agent for about $5.00 who then helped us get a taxi to the suburb of Villa Fatima where our bus would leave from. The ride itself was fine, not that comfortable but I've known worse and the scenery along the way is spectacular. The old road to Corioco is the infamous 'worlds most dangerous road' this is now closed to motor vehicles, and a tourist attraction to head down on a mountain bike. It was nice to be on the relative safety of the new road!
We stayed in a cabin at Villa Bonita, about a 5 min walk out of town. The cabin itself was pretty basic but the settings fantastic and the breakfast, fresh juice, good coffee, scrambled eggs with tomatoes and herbs, Swiss bread and homemade jam is one of the best we have had so far in South America. The hosts (the owner is Swiss) also spoke great English and gave great advise on where to go walking. This was the view from our bedroom window:
On Friday we explored the town and relaxed at our cabin. On Saturday we took a walk (around 5hrs) down to the river at Vagantes and back to town. We didn't go swimming as after a nights rainfall it was looking pretty rough, but you can normally do so there. Along the way down and uphill we saw plenty of birds such as condors and caiques and a variety of different plants. As you might tell from the photos it was pretty hot and humid!
There are lots of walks you can do around Coroico, some more challenging than others, and for most the tourist office and police advice you take a guide for about $35 a day. This seemed a lot and I couldn't help thinking the tourist office was playing on tourists fears with inflated prices so we stuck to one that we could do on our own.
We came back on Sunday as the heavens had opened and showed no sign of closing. Getting a bus back was easy enough, although we ended up in a smaller minivan (basically a 7 seater estate car) with just 3 other people. It was a quicker journey in a more comfortable seat but being sat in the middle I was a bit more cosy with the other passengers than I would have liked to be!
Back in La Paz we are chilling out and sorting the next steps of our journey from La Paz to Cochabamba then Santa Cruz.
We set off on Friday morning. To get there, the choice is a minivan or minibus ride shared with others, or a very expensive taxi ride. We took the minibus option and bought a ticket in advance from a local agent for about $5.00 who then helped us get a taxi to the suburb of Villa Fatima where our bus would leave from. The ride itself was fine, not that comfortable but I've known worse and the scenery along the way is spectacular. The old road to Corioco is the infamous 'worlds most dangerous road' this is now closed to motor vehicles, and a tourist attraction to head down on a mountain bike. It was nice to be on the relative safety of the new road!
We stayed in a cabin at Villa Bonita, about a 5 min walk out of town. The cabin itself was pretty basic but the settings fantastic and the breakfast, fresh juice, good coffee, scrambled eggs with tomatoes and herbs, Swiss bread and homemade jam is one of the best we have had so far in South America. The hosts (the owner is Swiss) also spoke great English and gave great advise on where to go walking. This was the view from our bedroom window:
On Friday we explored the town and relaxed at our cabin. On Saturday we took a walk (around 5hrs) down to the river at Vagantes and back to town. We didn't go swimming as after a nights rainfall it was looking pretty rough, but you can normally do so there. Along the way down and uphill we saw plenty of birds such as condors and caiques and a variety of different plants. As you might tell from the photos it was pretty hot and humid!
There are lots of walks you can do around Coroico, some more challenging than others, and for most the tourist office and police advice you take a guide for about $35 a day. This seemed a lot and I couldn't help thinking the tourist office was playing on tourists fears with inflated prices so we stuck to one that we could do on our own.
We came back on Sunday as the heavens had opened and showed no sign of closing. Getting a bus back was easy enough, although we ended up in a smaller minivan (basically a 7 seater estate car) with just 3 other people. It was a quicker journey in a more comfortable seat but being sat in the middle I was a bit more cosy with the other passengers than I would have liked to be!
Back in La Paz we are chilling out and sorting the next steps of our journey from La Paz to Cochabamba then Santa Cruz.
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