La Paz, which means 'the peace', is the capital of Bolivia and is 3600 meters high. On our first day there we both had nauseas headaches and needed to drink lots of coca tea (made from the leaves of the plant used to make cocaine). You see lots of people chewing the leaves in thick wads stuffed in their cheeks. It contains no cocaine and is a well known cure for altitude sickness. Its effects are not dissimilar to the caffeine boost of a nice cuppa (which we are starting to miss by the way).

La Paz is not pretty by any means, but it's definitely spectacular and fascinating. Everywhere else we've been has a hospitality to it, but in La Paz nothing feels easy without feeling entirely inhospitable. Maybe the fact walking anywhere involves steep hills and combined with the altitude you're constantly out of breath. The people we've met are not rude, but they certainly seem indifferent.

The cities location is a wonder in itself. It sits within a cup of several mountains, the tallest of which is snow covered year-round. The shanty areas where the majority live cling to the mountain side as high as 4200 metres, and are in various states of disrepair. Most don't have windows or doors, just holes in breeze-block corrugated-iron roofed structures. The centre of the city, in the 'shallow' of the cup, is full of old colonial architecture but it is crumbling and decayed. Buildings look as though they may fall down at any moment. Telephone and electrical cables hang in tangled masses forming slack Us over roads.

Bolivia is a very poor nation, however I've read that the Uyuni dessert, the vast salt plain in the south of Bolivia, is one of the few sources of Lithium in the world. As the world moves closer to the use of battery powered cars, this resource could make Bolivia very rich. China, America, Japan and others are currently fighting to gain favour with Bolivia. Whatever happens, the history of South America's use of their natural resources probably means that the money will either be made outside of the continent, or stay in the hands of the few at the top.

One of the most interesting parts of the city is the 'witches market' where Cholitas sell dried llama foetuses and potions. This isn't a tourist attraction, but a genuinely working market. The foetuses are buried under the foundations of buildings to bring prosperity.

Cholitas are the indigenous women of Bolivia and they dress traditionally. They wear comically shaped, tall and narrow, bowler hats which sit at an implausible angle on top of their black hair, hanging in a pair of thick plaits to below their waist. They also wear voluminous skirts emphasizing their already squat frame, and often have a child slung in a colourful blanket around their belly or shoulders.

On the plane journey to La Paz we met an Argentine girl from Buenos Aires who was visiting her family. When we arrived her aunty was there to greet her from the plane and then insisted on driving us to our hostel. In turned out that her husband ran the hat factory which produced hats for the Cholitas: we gathered that they must be very rich as everyone from teenagers to old ladies wears a hat. The girls aunt explained that the Cholitas' husbands don't wear traditional dress and are far more work-shy and fond of booze than their wives. Just a walk around the town seemed to confirm this as every market, food or juice stall, and other impromptu business is run by a Cholita without a man in sight.

It was refreshing to be in a South American city which was majority made up by indigenous people. What was strange though was that all of the billboards and shop windows contained images of acceptably pretty white people, generally blond: it seemed we were the only (nearly) blond people actually there.