As it turns out the stop in La Paz has been affected by our hurried plans to make it Cusco, Peru in time to satisfy the natural attraction to Machu Picchu, the ancient "Lost Inca City", perched perisously on the sheer faces of the Andeas. We arrived, along with our travel buddies from Brazil (Carol and Leo), safely in La Paz and immediately started looking into tours that might be available for the Inca Trail. The "Inca Trail", or the "Commercial Trail" as guides in Cusco call it is one particular Inca trek that has become particularly popular amongst tourists and hence is mighty expensive and has few vacancies for anybody but those who pay through the nose over the internet months in advance. It was suggested to us that we get our hides to Cusco as soon as possible to organise an alternative Inca trek because on the 24th of June Peru have a national holiday that shouldn't be missed. Hence, we had to squeeze in a four day trek inbetween now and then, so unfortunately La Paz was sacrificed to some extent - only two nights.

Firstly though I must describe the setting of La Paz because I have neither heard of nor seen a city in the world that could be described as similar to La Paz. La Paz is breathtaking and eerily strange at the same time. A Spanish conquistador by the name of Alonso de Mendoza settled La Paz in a sunken valley on the high plains of Bolivia in 1548. This sunken valley might be best described through an analogy of a bowling ball sitting on a mattress - the high plains surrounding La Paz are as barren and flat as a white sheet spread over the mattress, La Paz's houses cling to the sides of the sunken valley that the bowling ball's weight depresses into the mattress. La Paz has basically no level ground besides the high plains surrounding the city, and thus the streets have just evolved with the growth of the city. The city streets wind their way up and down and around in a pattern that I'm sure daffles even the locals' sense of direction. La Paz's altitude of 3600m gives it the title of the highest capital city in the world, and just to top of the surreal setting there are several snow capped mountains on the high plains that keep watch over the daily hustle and bustle that resonates through the Chuquiago Marka Valley that is home to La Paz.

So La Paz is not the sort of place that one might need to take an additive (such as cocaine, which is rampant in the city as a result of the blossoming trade of coca leaves) to get a new high, La Paz delivers this to even the most sober mind.

The whole Coca conundrum is an interesting conversation to have, Evo Morales, Bolivia's current president is dead keen on stamping on US initiatives that attempt to dissuade the locals from growing the Coca plant. He isn't just being a pain in the bum through; there is more to his intentions that just capitalising on the Bolivia's "shadow economy" (cocaine trade) which reaps little benefit in taxes for either the people of Bolivia or it's government, excluding the trafficers of course. Coca has a long history in Bolivia, and taking the Coca leaves in its raw type, by chewing them or taking them in tea, has numerous medicinal benefits and produces no high associated with cocaine. Besides the drug eradication methods of the states have done little to slow the production of the drug and only forced the growers of Coca to areas that haven't been sprayed with poisons, such as the Amazon basin, adding to the deforestation problems. High time, Alex thinks, for some more progressive initiatives than the ineffective US $3.3 billion year drug eradication that has little results to show for itself. Morales at least is anti cocaine, his slogan is "Coca, yes. Cocaine, no" - still, I'm not confident that this slogan is an effective alternative to reduce the percentage of Bolivian Coca plantations yield going into the production of cocaine either. Reduce the demand for cocaine is the only suggestion I would have thought.

So our first full day in La Paz was spent on a day trip to Chacaltaya, a mountain that looks over the high plain and valley of La Paz, which stands at 5500m at it's apex. This probably wasn't the smartest choice as we had come straight from Santa Cruz and had no time to acclimatise to La Paz, let alone an altitude of that height. Still, the rewards were ours when we arrived at the summit and had some breathtaking photos of the surrounding snow caps, mountain range, barren and treeless high plains and La Paz, at home in it's valley. The second half of the day trip from La Paz was spent at Lunar Valley, which is at the depths of the valley. Here the sub-surface river that runs beneath La Paz has eroded the earth in a bizarre way that has produced a Lunar-like-valley, not so much if you ask me. But it was nice to get down to 3000m to give our heads, suffering from the headache from altitude, some reprieve.

Adding to La Paz's strange look is the fact that basically none of the houses are actually completed, something that I had noticed but thought nothing of. Our day trip guide, Victor Hugo (not the French guy) told us that this is because in La Paz, residents are not required to pay land and house taxes until the houses are complete, hence everyone just adds a few extra bricks above their completed floor and tells the government that the house is still in construction - yet another of La Paz's quirks that I loved.

The rest of the time spent in La Paz was spent:

• Eating Cuban food, strangely popular in Bolivia
• Dancing the salsa at Mongo's Bar with our Brazilian friends
• Watching the South America qualifying football matches for the World Cup in South Africa in 2010 - especially the hyped Brazil v Argentina (0-0)
• Copping with the cold and lack of hot water.

Another interesting thing that we have noted in Bolivia, and South America, is the many travelers who idolise Che Guevara, well at least they were t-shirts and bandanas with his head printed on them. I guess he is more a revolutionary symbol, a symbol of not accepting the status quo than a man these days, but not everything the Argentine did in his lifetime is worth supporting; in fact the opposite may be true. Still, his story is an interesting one to follow as we pass places that we have in common with his epic travels through South and Central America, recorded in his book (and now movie) Motorcycle Diaries.

Enough for now, apologies for the waffling. I didn't really even include what we were up to in La Paz, oops. Now a bus to Cusco, Peru to get an Inca trek. So much travelling in such a short time makes Lexy's bum hurt.