ok so you might have noticed that the picture attatched to many of our blogs has been this church. we've been using it as a generic city shot beacuse you have to choose a pic and they have a crap selection but at last, the pictures accurate - we've actually been there! Iglesia San Francisco in La Paz.

so we boarded our bus from uyuni just past 8pm. It wasn't quite as comfy as advertised but that was kind of to be expected. We chosen a company who had 'direct services to La Paz 8pm' painted on the outside of their office. We were therefore none too happy when we were woken up at 4.30am for a ticket check and then told we would be changing buses in Oruro. The bus was freezing so we were all wrapped up in our sleeping bags but when the bus stopped it seemed we didn't have much time to get off. We grabbed our stuff and followed this guy to our new bus. There was a woman walking with us to the bus as well, promising us that the next bus had heating. What a big fat lie that was. This bus was even colder than the one before. And it started driving as our louggage was being loaded on. We had to jump on quick. Once we were on I was pleased to discover I didn't have a seat. All the seats were taken' leaving me and this American guy we'd met in the bus office earlier without seats. The guy working on the bus came over to see what was going on and managed to acertain that one old lady didnt have a ticket and was in the American guys seat. She was made to get off the bus and the american guy offered me his seat, thinking that another one would be freed up in a minute. But the bus guy just went back to his seat behind a curtain at the front and turned the lights off and we started moving! I went to try and speak to him. It was obvious that someone else didn't have a ticket but he wasn't bothered. He walked up to the end and said 'does everyone have a ticket? yes? ok.' That was the extent of ticket checking he was willing to do and he didn't care if we had to stand. Actually i ended up sitting across the american guy and tara's laps! What seemed like several hours later, the bus guy came out and shouted that there was a spare seat at the front and I finally got an uncomfortable seat of my own in which to curl up in my sleeping bag and attempt to sleep.

A couple of hours later than advertised we finally arrived in La Paz. We (still gillian, tara, ash and I) sat in the bus station cafe having a cup of tea and figured out where we were going. We called and reserved two rooms at a guesthouse we found in lonely planet which was nearby on the main road.

The first day was unsuprisingly unproductive. We had showers and did laundry(very nice after the jeep tour where we pretty much slept in and wore the same clothes for 3 days), watched a dvd, went out for some food, had a wander around...

Our second day we headed out to explore a bit more. We walked around the market area. First of all the witches market, which has a load of stalls selling herbs claiming to be able to make you rich, beautiful etc. and bunches of dried llama foetuses - pretty gross, they bury them under their doorsteps so that pachamama will give them good luck. Then we walked around the vast area known as the black market (although its not all dodgy) which has different streets dedicated to different things: fabric, cereal biscuits and snacks, cleaning products, toiletries.... A very bizarre place indeed. Really quite tiring after a while. La Paz was sunny, ridiculously packed and mostly hills. Theres one main road that runs through the centre where a river used to be and everything else is uphill either side of that.

After lunch we did a spot of shopping and then headed to the coca museum. That was really interesting. They handed us these huge booklets with english translations of everything that was written on the walls. It was only a small place but it was a hell of a lot of information and reading. It taught me alot. Coca leaves have been used in the Andes since pre-inca times and they have so many amazing properties. They provide really quite alot of nutrition, they prevent altitude sickness, increase oxygen absorbtion, reduce appetite, can be used as an anisethetic, increase toleration to manual labour... They provide everything the poor people of Bolivia need really. And they're very important religiously, as a way of getting in touch with the gods. Miners in Potosi used to work 2 day shifts with only coca leaves to keep them going.

Then it went through the impact of cocaine, a western invention. During the period when it was legal people drank huge amounts of a french wine containing cocaine. Then this American bloke invented a drink using cocaine, 30 times more caffeine than coffee, ghanian cola nuts and, when prohibition was introduced in america, he made it alcohol free. That was the original coca-cola obviously. When cocaine became illegal they obviously had to stop using it but they still use coca leaves as part of their secret recipe to flavour it. Then an American banker made a statement that 'coca causes mental retardation and is the cause of poverty in south america' and coca production was made prohibited. These days, countries like bolivia and peru are allowed to farm a certain number of hectares of coca but are not allowed to produce any cocaine. There are however 36 western countries who can legally produce set amounts of cocaine (supposedly for medical purposes but once the facilities exist...) The USA can produce 530kg of the stuff a year as well as importing another 499 tonnes of coca leaves. Pretty much all the chemicals which are used for illegal cocaine production in the bolivian jungle are flown in from america, the biggest consumers. there was a whole list of shocking statistics about cocaine usage in america but i cant quite remember them.

There was also a section on cocaine production and the chemicals which go into it. All of them are toxic to the system and/or burn your insides. The whole thing left me feeling really quite disgusted by cocaine and the way the trade has destroyed south american culture for the benifit of stupid westerners. We've met a shocking number of travellers that never seem to see the daylight and just come to south america to party in gringo bars on cheap coke. its incredibly boring and sad.

We didn't know about it whilst we were in La Paz but we've recently heard the story of San Pedro prison in the city. Its a working prison for cocaine related criminals BUT its also responsible for 80% of cocaine exportation out of the country and is supposed to have 'the best coke in bolivia'. Disgustingly, if you call up in advance and then go to the back entrance and pay the guard 200 bolivianos (14=1 pound), you can go inside and chat to the prisoners, even stay the night, and buy a gram of 'bolivias best' to snort in a cell. 150 gringos visit a day. Whole families live in the prison - if the dad is convicted the family move in. once there, the richer ones can buy a better cell. some end up with 3 storey houses basically.

In the evening we walked (with lots of breaks) up to the mirador k'illi k'illi which looks out over the crazy city and the mountains beyond. From there we watched the sunset and the hills lighting up which looks beautiful at night.

From the mirador we walked down across town to an area with loads of internet cafes. The connections were painfully slow and when we finally managed to get to a point where we could upload photos we discovered, to our horror, that my memory card had some how been wiped of all the pictures before the previous evening. I was so upset. We haven't had a huge amount of luck with cameras or anything it seemed at that point. The walk home forced me to stop feeling so sorry for myself. We saw a baby at the side of the main road left by itself wrapped up in a bundle, there were so many children trying to sell us things, one little boy crying his eyes out by himself, begging old ladys.... La Paz was a real culture shock compared with the places we'd been so far but in a good way. The city has a really good energy about it.

The next morning we got up early to be picked up by a tourist bus (after the uyuni-la paz experience we decided it was best) to copacabana on the edge of lake titicaca.