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Ok, so we have spent a lot longer in La Paz than we planned, and it´s not even that good! But have been doing lots of chilling out and eating... and then being ill... then eating... and so on.
I forgot to write some random trivia about Lake Titicaca before... Apparently 'Titi' means Puma (not boob) and 'Caca' can either mean s***, or stone. So, the Peruvians say Titi Peru, Caca Bolivia and the Bolivians say Titi Bolivia, Caca Peru. Isn´t that interesting...
Anyway, we narrowly escaped death on the bus from Copa to La Paz. They swapped the nice coach we came on from Peru for this smaller, much older bus. Which would have been ok, but we sat at the back and then, as usually happens when a bus is full, 10 more people get on! So Pete had a lovely man sat on his lap for 8 hours who smelt delightful!!! I was ok by the window and more worried about the roads and the driving. We almost hit a wall leaving Copa when the bus went over a bump, i think the wheels actually lifted off the floor, and then we had a couple of hours zig zagging along, avoiding holes, with a sheer drop on one side of the bus. I was hardly breathing, and neither was pete, but for a different reason!! Oh and half way through we had to get off the bus and onto a boat to cross the lake, which was a nice surprise, except the 'boat' would be more accurately described as an upside down shed with a motor, petrol supplied by a tube stuck in a carton on the floor. And oh my god how rough was the ride, i felt so sick. Rest of bus journey was uneventful. But I am still curious by the amount of people here that just sit along road or river sides in the middle of nowhere. What are they doing? Where do they come from and where do they go?
La Paz:
It´s an ok city. Full of markets and street stalls, and not very modern. But there are decent places lurking, and the Sopacchi area is quite developed. We´ve now been to most of the nice restaurants, our favourite being Sol y Luna (sun and moon) where we have spent a few evenings eating their very nice food, listening to live music, and working our way through their drinks menu. We also ate at a Dali restaurant where they apparently serve chocolate covered llama, but we couldn´t find it on the menu, which was very disappointing for me because i wanted pete to eat that! Our food came garnished with rose petals, leaves and grass which looked lovely, but more like a died flower arrangement than dinner.
We have visited a few museums and galleries and had a disasterous day visiting Tiwanaku involving public transport... never again! Get this, they charge tourists 20 times more than nationals to get in! Outrageous, and the site was pretty sparse!. But we learned the rather important difference between 15 and 50, and 7 and 70... the lesson being listen, and never ever use public transport. Seriously, 26 people on a 14 seat bus. No windows, flies, and traffic jams... 4 hours to get home. We were laughing out of sheer horror (oh and this time it was my turn to sit by the BO man), and i had to make 1/4 of a bottle of luminous fanta last the whole way.
We tried to leave today, but we´re both a bit ill and not in a fit state for a 14 hour bus ride to the salt lakes! Definitely a love/hate relationship with La Paz. Oh, photo is of the Witches market... you can see llama foetuses of varying sizes, some armadillos, wierd statues, and potion things and 'medicines'.
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