We arrived in La Paz on the Friday night at Wild Rovers and we headed to the bar for a few drinks. After only about 3 I felt quite drunk. I blame the altitude, sun, long day and bus journey! It was a lively night and was packed but eventually I headed for bed and passed out, quite literally. The next day we had a big Irish breakfast which was yummy. We then discussed our route with a nice girl called Sophie. She recommended a hotel if we could not stay any longer in WR as they were packed. We headed out handed in washing and booked ourselves into the Hotel Torino for a night it was actually cheaper and closer to the town so it was great. It was an old building and outside our window was the beautiful church so it was gorgeous. We went for a look around and we stumbled across the celebrations for a carnival. They had been cancelled a few weeks earlier due to some mudslide or something.The street was packed with people and different acts were in motion. There was lots of different stalls on the go for food as well. It was great to be there and watch some of it. We then headed for a shop about at the witches market which is infamous in La Paz. It basically it lots and lots of little shops selling Alpaco knitwear, accessories... lots really. Later on I found out we were not at the right witches market. At the right one you can buy Llama's brains and other random parts.. yuck!!
The next day we went and bought our bus ticket to Uyuni. It was a real shame we did not have the time to go in land and check out Sucre, Potosi and Santa Cruz but time was really against us. We had to get to BA for the 12th April and the bus journeys were long and we did not have the time. We also wanted to definitely do the 3 day tour and also do some horse riding, jeeps and bikes in Tupiza so this was our plan before we headed south for Argentina. When we were at the bus station we were approached by an eldery lady who through rough translation was warning us to watch our bags as we were being watched. That was pretty scary and I had heard La Paz was quite bad for this. A guy in our room had his bag stolen when he turned his back for 2 seconds. With our hands firmly around our bags and watching around us we headed back to town. We then went around the markets and street. We tried a delicious pastry which had some sort of curry style filling which was extremely good but messy. I picked up some toiletries I needed and we got a few more presents and had a bit of a chill out in a nice cafe. We ate in some local places but there was not much open as it was Sunday so we ended up eating in a local KFC style chicken place and then having a burger for dinner. Have I mentioned how much they love fried food?? Honestly it is everywhere... I will be as fat as a fool when I get home!! They have little stalls where they sell chips, burgers..salchipapas which is like hotdog pieces with chips.. Being a massive chip fan of course I loved it. :) We then headed off for our 7pm bus ride of 11 hours to Uyuni. When we were at the bus station there was a really suspicious guy sitting near us and was watching our every move. Aimee and I were ready for him and were ready to pounce if he tried anything. Luckily there were a few police about as well. The bus ride was interesting to say the least. We were lucky enough to get 2 seats each but it was to hard to get comfortable. The first 6 hours were not to bad but the second 5 were almost hilarious. It was like being in a constant power plates class. We were rattling about and literally swaying from side to side.. so who could ever sleep on that I don't know. Welcome to Bolivan roads :)