La Paz is an awesome city, however let me backtrack to where I left off. After leaving Sucre, we headed to Potosí (I had to pee so bad on the bus ride) to do a tour of Cerro Rico, the richest silver mine in the world. Getting into Potosí it was evident that there was not much air, we are at almost 4000m, around 13,000 feet. Not much of our good ol` friend, Oxygen(O2) up here. We headed into the center of town, awestruck by the huge cathedral and beautiful central plaza, booked our tour to the mine, and headed back to our crappy hostel and passed out in a fitful, oxygen deprived sleep. Laina felt really sick and had symptoms of altitude sickness when we woke up, so we decided to ditch the tour(good thing we didn´t pay yet) and see the town for one more day and head out. After getting some lunch, we headed to another hostel, made a few book exchanges(in which I got "Flashman and the Dragon" which is an awesome book) and then left town. While Potosí is supposedly nice, we were happy to leave after only 24 hours. We caught our night bus to La Paz, and began our fun filed journey.
Getting into town at 5 am wasn´t the best idea, but it was the cheapest. With a few obstacles, we headed to our hostel and took a quick nap. It is really hard to sleep on Bolivian night busses. Headed out of the hostel, La Paz is true chaos. There is market everywhere, people everywhere, and cars beeping, everywhere. Most of the people on the street are indigenous and live in the city. Looking around to see the surroundings of La Paz, you see that the whole city is in a cup chaped valley with the suburbs on the steep sides. It is truely astounding how steep the streets are here, and i though San Fransisco had the steepest streets in the world, how I was wrong! Looking even farther away, there is a huge snow covered mountain that looms over La Paz. when it eventually shows itself, the reflection of the snow (in mid summer, mind you) is almost as bright as the sun.
Later that evening we get in contact with our couchsurfing host, turned good friend, Mallory. We head to her house and go out and meet some friends over drinks. Mal is from California (bay area) and one of the few americans(USA) that we really got to know on this trip. We head back to our hostel, and the next morning we ship our stuff over to Mal´s house. Our first day at the house, we made a huge dinner, it was so much fun cooking in a big kitchen again! We made spicy grated sardines, a very large stir fry, fried rice, and wine. During dinner many Bolivian friends of hers cam over and ate some food, as we got ready for the nights big game, Kings cup.
After dinner, everyone gathered around the living room table, about 12 of us, and started the game called "kings cup". It is a drinking game based on cards and vocabulary. If you can follow, what you do is pick a card from a line of upside down cards in a circle surrounding a big cup, and according to what card you choose, all or some or one of the players has to do something or drink. The fun part of the game was that half the people could not speak english, and the other half spoke very poor spanish! We modified some rules(one player was fluent in both languages so she translated everything) and began. Very quickly a rule was made(when you pick up an "8", you get to make a rule) that you could only speak spanish! Everyone laughed and the game turned into all spanish, and made-up spanish words. We had a fantastic night, except for the fact that sine La Paz is almost at 12,000 feet, the drinks effect you much faster.
The next day we decided to head to the market and buy some things around town. The weather turned sour pretty quickly, and started raining. When the rain started, I started to feel ill, quickly realizing I was hungry, dehyrated and at altitude, i started to feel nauseaous. At the time I was standing on the table, under a tarp, and then everything went white, and I fell off the table, into the street! It was the first time I had ever fainted, At least it was in La Paz at 12,000ft.
Over the next two days I picked up a few fun things from the market to bring back home, and some kitchen utensils for cheap. At mallorys we made some more delicous food, and matched some seinfeld, and relaxed. Hanging out with mallory was fun because, it felt like being back in the US again. Being on the road so long(almost 3 months by now) we didnt meet too many people from the states and it was nice to have some company of your home culture. After we got everything done in La Paz, we said our sad goodbyes to Mal, and headed to the bus station to get on a cheap bus to Copacabana, on the shores of Lake Titicaca.
When we got to Copacabana, we met some British limeys(who we will spend the next week or so with) hit it off with them, and booked a hostel all together. Copacabana is quie nice, very clear and sunny. However it is also at 4000m, 13000ft. and just living is difficult. Over the next two days we had alot of fun with the brits, and talked alot about the similarities of our cultures(compared to Bolivia, of course). On this trip I have learned so much about the UK that I feel like I have practially lived there!
Our third day in Copacabana we headed out to hike on the famous Isla del Sol, surrounded by stunning, Lake Titicaca. The hike was nice, but the altitude made it a little more then a walk in the park. Also, with the elevation the sun is killer, and we all got sunburned. on the hike we saw some very cool Incan ruins, Lake Titicaca(of course) and some beautiful mountians. The hike took us the majority of the day, but we all enjoyed ourselves being hungry and talking about food (english and american). Getting back into town, we got some pizzas and called it a tired, early night. Waking up the next morning we fiddled around town, enjoyed a skimpy full english breakfast, and caught our bus to Arequipa, Peru!
Goodbye Bolivia!
