La Paz 1

We set off from Copacabana on the bus and soon reached a gap in the road caused by Lake Titicaca. We all had to get off the bus and travel across in a very small boat. The bus came separately on some old planks of wood with an engine attached. Normally we could have just stayed on the bus as it made the crossing, but in 2001 a bus tipped over and sank to the bottom of the lake, taking all of the passengers with it. Oops!

We soon arrived in La Paz and went to our hotel. Charlie was shocked at the price of the room, since we had just come from a really cheap town. As Charlie shouted out "IT'S REALLY EXPENSIVE", a woman behind shouted out "IT'S REALLY CHEAP", since she had just come from a very expensive town in the south. We all had a good laugh then ran away and hid in our room. 

We ventured out later in the day and visited the famous (apparently) Coca museum. It was tucked up a little alley and run by an old granjad, which we appreciated. We quite like museums in KulakLand as all the information is often in Spanish so we have an excuse to race around and leave quickly. Unfortunately, this time, when we paid the entrance fee, granjad gave us each a huge booklet in hideous typewriter font full of information about each individual exhibit. We spent a few moments sniggering at the English mistakes and then raced around anyway.

On our way to the Coca museum we encountered one of many Kulak protests to come. It didn't seem to be achieving anything, just a lot of old kulaks standing around. Just like normal then.

We had planned to visit the jail in La Paz, which gives the rich prisoners luxury accommodation and the naughty kulak thieves have to sleep in the corridor. For a small fee you can get shown round the jail by a prisoner. However we asked some people that had tried to do it and all they managed to achieve was losing a lot of money in bribes to the guards and not even getting into the prison in the end. So we wisely decided not to visit.

The first night at the hotel Lisa awoke to the sounds of sexing through the paper thin walls at 4am. Charlie managed to sleep through it somehow.

The following day we had given ourselves many tasks to complete but unfortunately kulaks adhere to holidays.  The 1st of May was obviously something special as everything was closed.  We decided to take a walk to our Embassy surely they would not take willy nilly holidays.  The walk was about an hour but we eventually found it all shut up and closed for a kulak holiday.  We were going to have a nosey around and register our presence in the country, oh well we certainly weren't going to make that trek again.  On the road back we encountered La Paz's only supermarket and so bought many snacks for lunch.  We enjoyed a pound of cheese each with rice cakes, which we snacked on heartily at our hostel.

After making ourselves feel very sick and laughing in the face of gall stones, we decided to visit the only thing that was open today; the internet.  The entire chapter of Chile was read in the book and it seems the only part of the country worth visiting is closed for winter.  So not to miss the country out altogether we happened across Easter Island.  Thinking that this was going to be extortionately expensive we didn't hold out much hope.  We checked the flights online and found it to be just over 150 pounds return.  The rest of Chile was very expensive with the average run-down hostel costing 15 pounds a night.  All things considered Easter Island seemed a good venture so we booked the flights and the dates also happen to coincide with Charlie's birthday.  We were, and still are, two very excited little travellers.

The World's Most Dangerous Road is officially outside of La Paz but we found one right in the centre of the tourist area of La Paz.  This road is crammed full with speeding micros and buses with nothing better to do than swerve and hit pavements.  This is not so bad but the pavements are covered with shiny tiles.  With walking boots on this is not a problem but when flip flops encounter such a surface the world is made a much scarier place.  Lisa managed to perform a ski down 5m of the pavement, it was actually a slip but she skied it down.  Charlie also slipped at exactly the same moment as he turned to laugh at Lisa's slip.  The travellers were engaged in much sniggering but as usual the nearby kulaks only had concern upon their faces.

Finally on May 2nd we could complete the tasks we had set ourselves.  We managed to get to the immigration office to extend our Visas and were told to photocopy our passports and original entry stamp.  On the same road we found a man whose sole business was a photocopier.  There was a woman in front photocopying an entire book but we soon managed to get them copied.  Then back in Immigration we were told to return at 6pm to collect passports.  We returned promptly at 6pm and the kulaks were just stamping the passports, we spotted ours being stamped but the kulaks refused to hand them over and demanded that we return again at 6:30.  We returned around 6:30, slightly less promptly than the first time, and found a huge long queue.  This made us quiet angry and kulak inefficiencies but at least they were friendly.

A spot of good news to be shared:  Lisa has now bought a new pair of socks to replace the laundry lost pair.  Unfortunately they are US Army socks.

Lisa also visited DHL to send a package of souvenirs and unnecessary items that were cluttering her backpack.  The process was slow as everything had to be checked and the man became slightly embarrassed as he revealed Lisa’s sports bra.  A jolly sniggering fit was had all round.

 

Final thoughts: A big dirty city.

 

Mark out of 10 = 4

 

Next time... Rurrenabaque