We have heard you either love Bolivia or you hate it, mostly because it is a little chaotic. This is the same for La Paz, which is currently competing to be a Wonder City for South America. It probably won´t be successful this time around, but that´s not to say we didn´t love it! We stayed in the best place in town, Alcedes´ house - Landscape B&B in the Embassy District. The whole place has a rough and ready vibe. People are very friendly and the cars and buses chuck out thick black smoke to the point were Damian could barely breathe after day 4!
When we arrived we stumbled across The English Pub whilst looking for accomodation. Full English Breakfast enjoyed!
The Witches Market had dead baby Llama hung up (to be used for good luck when buried under your front door), but the Llama wool clothes markets were very very expensive so my plan to buy all the Christmas presents here was thwarted!
After Damian finished the world´s hottest vindaloo (and got the t-shirt) we went to possibly the worst dance performance ever (my idea) in a stunning theatre. We did leave half way through, but only paid 1USD for the tickets - worth the experience I think! Damian disagrees.
We did the famous death road as well, which is a bike ride from over 5000m down to the Jungle at Coroico. The view is brilliant, but it´s name is pretty appropriate. A very steep ride down but we survived with only 1 person in our group flipping his bike over and landing on his head!
It was quite difficult to leave La Paz, as the buses regularly breakdown. We turned up on our first attempt only to find the bus had broken down before arrival. As this was an overnight 9hr journey, it was slightly concerning, but in Bolivia you have to accept it. They did try to put us on a horrific looking bus, dirty and cramped, but a Laura Strop in broken Spanish resulted in all money returned and a bus for the next night. Another day and night in La Paz at Alcedes´ lovely house. The second bus did arrive, but broke down constantly on route to Uyuni, so took 14 hours! We arrived just in time for our trip to Salar de Uyuni (the worlds largest salt flats).
