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On Monday (12 Nov) we got a tourist bus to La Paz, Bolivia via Copacobana. We had about 2 hours in Copacobana which seemed like a really nice town, so we grabbed some lunch and managed to bump into the German couple with whom we had done the Inca Trail! We also managed to sort all of the immigration procedures uneventfully (!!) and bump into another couple who had been on the Inca Trail. It´s a small world when your all travelling the same way!
We arrived in La Paz at about 5pm that night. We thought that the bus would have dropped us at the bus station, instead it dumped us in the middle of a busy side street! We spotted a hostel accross the road and because we didn´t have a clue where we were, we stayed there! It turned out to be pretty nice and popular with backpackers. Once we had dumped our bags we wondered round aimlessly for ages trying to find somewhere nice to eat which proved quite difficult. We eventually ended up just walking into a restaurant which turned out to be fairly expensive and not so good! After tea we rushed into buying the first city tour that we could find. The trouble was, we only had one day to spend in La Paz and then we had to leave so we were pretty tight for time and didn´t really know what to do with our one day! Turns out that rushing isn´t a good idea...
The next day (tues) we met our ´City Tour Guide´at the tourist office. His name was Carlos, a bachelour and he reminded me of the guy in Tabatinga! Not good. There were only Neil and I on the tour so we got a taxi to ferry us around the town. The first stop was ´Valle de la Luna´ (Moon Valley) which is a few kilometers out of the town center. This was quite impressive, full of sandstone pinnicles caused by errosion over the years. Apparently, Neil Armstrong named this place as he said it was the closest thing on Earth to being on the Moon! We were allowed to wander around here freely while Carlos went and sweet talked some women, we were quite pleased with this as he had done nothing but talk in the car! The next stop was Killi Killi, a lookout point from where you can pretty much see all of La Paz and the beautiful mountains surrounding the city. La Paz is pretty much built in a crater so there are mountains all around. After this we were taken to a museum in the center of town. The museum was the home of many masks worn in carnivals and festivals around South America. It was interesting at first but i got a little bored! From here it was on to the Witches Market which unknown to us, was just round the corner from our hostel! Here we were taken to a stall where the woman was selling dried Llama foetes. Eurghh! At first i was quite intrigued; the witch docters say to bury the foetes under the first stone of a new house to bring good luck. Sean and Norma, i know your not building your house but i did think of buying you one! But then i thought i may have a problem getting it through customs and also, some of them were so big. Surely it´s cruel to abort a baby llama that far through the pregnancy???...When Carlos had picked us up in the morning, as soon as we had got in the car he had asked us to go for lunch with him when we had finished the tour. I wish we had said no but of course that would have been rude! To my utter disappointment he took us to the restaurant we had been in the night before! He was pretty much telling us what to order, but i just stuck to soup. Neil and Carlos had a set menu (unknown to me at this point, i did too!) consisting of salad, soup, a main course and dessert with a hot drink. It´s fairly akward sitting with someone you dont really know, especially when you are stuck for conversation! We made our excuses to leave after the main course and when the bill came Carlos handed it straight to Neil and bogged off to the toilet. It was S/.200 and i had been charged for the full set menu! The waiter wouldn´t change it even though i had only had soup. I was quite annoyed at this but we put in S/.150 anyway which was more than enough. Now, we don´t know what the custom is here but when Carlos came out of the toilet he asked us why we weren´t paying for his meal...i was pretty gobsmacked and would never had said yes to lunch if i thought we were paying for him aswell! Of course all of us Gringos have money spilling from our pockets!!! We left the restaurant pretty sharpish and grabbed our bags from the hostel. We had a bus booked out of La Paz for that night.
(From here it's onto Mendoza, Argentina so don't get side tracked by the entries from BA and Iguassu!)
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