La Paz (May 24, 2006)

It was dark as we left Sucre, and the bus driver turned the lights out on the bus around 7pm, so we decided we might as well get some sleep. I took a Sleep-Eze sleeping pill, which helped a lot, as did the ear plugs to block out the competing music. There were two Boliviano guys who had small portable stereos, but apparently had not bothered to invest in earphones, so everyone else on the bus had to listen to their music, not to mention the music played by the bus driver himself. Eventually all went quiet and I slept almost the whole way, with the exception of a couple of stops along the way when the driver would turn on the lights again.

At five in the morning, the bus came to a stop, the lights came on, and the bus driver announced to everyone to come pick up their luggage. People started piling off the bus, and we were all bewildered. We were half asleep, it was still dark out, what was going on? We checked with the bus driver and indeed we were already in La Paz, only 11 hours later! Lincoln said that in the night when he woke up a couple of times he noticed how fast the bus driver was going…I’m glad I was sleeping and didn’t know that! We decided that we would stay in the bus terminal until it was light out, to be safe. Another couple on the bus hung out with us (Dan and Roean (sp?) from Australia). They are going to B.C. in a month, so I told them to look up Kevin when they are in Tofino & Ucluelet. When it was light out, we all trooped out of the bus terminal to find Arthy’s, which was only a five minute walk from the terminal. After trying to figure out which street was which (street signs are not a strong point here), we ended up going in the right direction and found Arthy’s. Dan and Roe decided not to stay because it was a bit above their budget, but we liked the place and stayed. It has a very homey atmosphere and good lounging areas. Shared bath and shower, but we are getting used to that. I’ve also almost gotten used to throwing the toilet paper in a basket again. Drainage systems can’t handle the toilet paper, so almost everywhere in SA (and Asia, for that matter), you have to throw the toilet paper in a basket beside the toilet. Pretty smelly, but the good places empty it frequently. Anyways, I digress!

After relaxing in the hostel for a few minutes, we left to explore La Paz. At 3700m, the city sits in a bowl, with the city sprawling up the steep sides. It is a bustling, noisy city with lots of traffic. Our hostel is located near the beginning of the main street, called Prada (it actually has several different names, this is just the unofficial name given to the entire length of it). We spent most of the day walking around this area, as well as the main touristy streets of Sagarnaga and Linares. We spent half the day trying to decide which tour agency to use for the popular mountain bike tour down the “World’s Most Dangerous Road”, which we want to do tomorrow. In the end we decided on Xtreme Downhill. Most tourists recommend Gravity Assisted, but we went to their office and it was just too westernized and the groups were big (20+). Xtreme’s groups were no bigger than 10, it was a locally-run company, the people were friendly, and the price was cheaper (but not the cheapest) at $39 per person, including meals all day, decent bikes, pants and jackets to protect our clothes, a free t-shirt, and a CD with pictures of the day.

We also went to a couple of museums today. The Coca Museum was very interesting and had information on the history of the use of coca leaves in Bolivia. The leaves are chewed by about 80% of the population, for spiritual reasons, energy, and medicinal reasons. This practice has been in place for over 2000 years. It has only been since the end of the 1800’s that westerners discovered making cocaine from the leaves, at first for medical reasons, and then for personal pleasure. Coca tea is commonly used to help with altitude sickness (I’ve had it a few times – tastes like green tea!) Coca-cola was invented at the beginning of the 1900’s and contained cocaine for many years until it was banned. Coca-cola still uses coca leaves as one of its ingredients, just not in the cocaine form any more. There has been huge controversy over the growing of the coca leaves in Bolivia for decades now. The American government wants to ban the growing of coca leaves altogether (to try and control cocaine use in the United States), companies like Coca-cola want the growing to be controlled through “legal” growing operations only, and the Bolivians just want to keep growing coca leaves and using them in the same way they have been for thousands of years, especially since the coca leaf plays a very important role in their religious and spiritual ceremonies.

The next museum we visited was the Museum of Contemporary Art, which had some good paintings from Bolivian artists. The funny thing about the museum is that most of the paintings are for sale! There were a couple that we were very tempted to buy, since the price was very reasonable for original works (we took pictures of them, and they are in the photo gallery for La Paz). There have been many things that we’d like to buy to bring home, but we keep thinking about how we’d have to carry it all for the next three months, and so far we have bought very little. Hats, gloves, and slippers for each of us, to keep us warm, and that’s it.

After walking around the steep streets of La Paz all day (at a very slow pace because you get out of breath very easily at this altitude!), we went back to the hostel and spent the evening doing some much-needed updates to our journals.