Well, La Paz took us a bit by surprise! We started off on our long drive-day at 7am, driving up into the mountains again, round quite a lot of hairpin bends, where you could see the road ahead snaking round the mountainside at different levels, a bit like a giant helter- skelter, then after a couple of hours we continued through the flat and dusty landscape of the Altiplano, with snow capped mountain peaks visible on the horizon. As the hours went on, we began to notice more and more traffic on the road.
Suddenly, we were in the middle of a large urban sprawl, with absolute chaos of gridlocked vehicles, all tooting their horns and swarms of people everywhere. This turned out to be just the outskirts of La Paz - probably still about an hour away from the centre! Eventually, we reached El Alto, which used to be considered a district of La Paz, but since about 12 years ago, this area which is home to over 1 million people, has been given 'city status' in its own right. The teetering layers of dwellings clinging to the hillsides above the city defy belief, and down at 3,600m, in the bowl shaped valley, is La Paz itself, home to another 1.2 million people.
We had to leave the truck in a secure truck-park, and get ferried in to the hotel by various means of transport, as the city streets are very narrow, and incredibly steep. Our hotel was quite quirky, and almost every available surface, including some of the doors, was covered with 'trompe-l'oeil' murals of Bolivian country scenes. Our room only had a window that overlooked the internal landing, but as if by way of compensation, we had a life size 'perspective' view down a village street on one wall, and a painted-on 'window', complete with railings and a window-box of red geraniums, looking over the countryside on another! I felt completely disorientated every time I turned round!
A new couple joined our group, so we went out for a group meal in the evening, but unfortunately it was a complete disaster! We ordered our meals, and after we'd been waiting over an hour, the waiter came to say they'd run out of several dishes, so could we order something else!! I think we would have walked out, but it wouldn't be that easy to find a table for 16 of us at 9.30pm on a Saturday night, so we waited about another 45 mins and eventually the food arrived, the enormous portion sizes explained why they kept running out of food!!
On Sunday morning, Tony and one other guy set off (very nervously) at 7am to cycle 64km down hill (dropping from 4,700m at the icy top, above the clouds, down to 1,295m in the rainforest at the bottom), on the world's most dangerous road, the famous and aptly named 'Death Road'! A mere 3m wide, mostly unsealed road, with inumerable hairpin bends, sheer drops of over 900m, and no safety barriers, this 5 hour 'ride' is not for the faint hearted!! Especially when the group were shown the very spot were a car went over the edge last week, killing all occupants! Fortunately, Tony completed it without mishap, and came back that evening ( it took 3 hours to drive back), sporting a 'survivor's t- shirt' which has a very scary map of the route on the back, and a big smile! Well done!

Meanwhile I had a day out with the girls, visiting the Basilica, (where it's apparently ok to take your dog to Mass), the 'Witches Market' where you can buy all sorts of weird things including dried up llama fetuses to bury in the foundations of your house for luck (!), and then the four of us had our long awaited touristy shopping session (lovely!) and lunch.
At 4 pm we were picked up from the hotel, and driven back up to El Alto, to watch their famous Sunday afternoon event .....'Cholita Wrestling' !! (The Cholita's are the ladies that have two long plaits, and wear the traditional outfits of bowler hats, layered flouncy skirts, and shawls). Two of them, (both taking part in the wrestling) had a lift with us in the mini bus, and the guide explained about their costumes, and the history of the wrestling matches - men against men, (they usually wear masks), men against women (the women always win) and women against women (beating each other with frying pans is also acceptable!) The venue was some kind of a barn-style community sports centre, so it had a curved roof, and walls that only went part of the way up to meet the roof, so it was more or less 'al fresco' at the start, then freezing once the sun went down. We had ringside seats, (two rows of plastic chairs), and our ticket included a voucher for a soft drink and a bag of popcorn, excellent!
There then followed over two hours of absolute mayhem! The 'bad' wrestler in each contest storms around overturning chairs, chasing the audience, stealing your drinks and popcorn and ordering you to cheer! The 'good' person is almost on their last legs, after being thrashed and slammed about, thrown out of the ring, and jumped on from a height, then they come back to win the fight. We had all lost the plot by the last fight, as there were two teams of three in the ring at the same time, and it just looked like a bar room brawl, but with lots of plait-pulling and flailing of layered petticoats!! The locals absolutely loved it, including lots of small children, and were going wild with excitement at the end, shouting for their favourites. At the end, one of the 'bad' wrestlers, dressed in a hideous wolf mask, chased everyone out of their seats, so we guessed it was time to go home. I think it was the most bizzare way I've ever spent a Sunday afternoon! It was also a good distraction from worrying about how Tony was doing on 'Death Road'!
Well, our next destination is Puno, in Peru, on the shores of Lake Titicaca. I'll be sorry to leave Bolivia, and sad to say goodbye to two of the lovely ladies who end their tour here in La Paz, but soooo excited about going to Peru!!!........Goodnight.