My first time blogging so it may take a while to get up to speed! After flight from Heathrow to Madrid, then 12h wait, my next plane to Lima was delayed by 3.5h till 3am. So the 12.5 h flight arrived just as my connecting flight to La Paz left!!
There were 5 of us who then had to wait till the next day for a flight to La Paz. So I had 24h at a very pleasant hotel, with good food, temperature of 25 degrees and time to take a long walk in the sun along the coast through the lovely gardens of the Miraflores region of Lima with Carine ( who runs a bakery and restaurant on lake Annecy). So it could have been worse and the exercise was very welcome!
Coming into La Paz is amazing having flown over the Andes (spectacular in scale and beauty) to land at nearly 4000m where the air is so thin special tyres and longer runways are needed. And you really feel the lack of oxygen, every step I take an effort, especially with baggage. I shared a taxi to my hotel with Anselm from Berlin ( he cycles tourists around in a rickshaw, when not on cycle or other amazing foreign trips), he wanted to rest before going to meet his friend.
The hotel was very pleasant, private room with shared shower facilities, breakfast included for £10 a night. Lots of hostels are cheaper and food is not expensive either so you can live quite cheaply. Anselm and I explored La Paz on foot - quite slowly as the streets are vertigenous everywhere, it sits in a very steep sided valley with lots of steps. At 3660m it takes a while to acclimatise. We visited the Plaza San Francisco with its beautiful church and museum, in a little park we came across what appeared to be a demonstration with a group of men playing local instruments ( very interesting to stop and listen to) in local costume, the ladies nearby chatting and collecting signatures.
The street markets included loads of shop and stalls selling local crafts, the typical hats, llama wool clothing, and woven shale, belts etc - very beautiful and good value, but I have little room in my luggage... Many of the older ladies wear traditional dress with the top hats (black or Brown and not held on, just balanced!) Carrying goods on their backs in brightly coloured woven squares, or babies using the same techniques.
What about the weather? It's tropical, and their 'summer' though they call it winter as it is the wet season (Jan to April). Mostly it is dry in the mornings, clouding more in the afternoon with some showers, with temperatures dropping around zero overnight and rising to 12-14 degrees by midday - considering the altitude, very pleasant! One shower that first day...
Anselm and I had our evening meal together at a typical little restaurant close to the hotel, steak with rice and vegetables, washed down with local paceno beer, which comes in large bottles, OK if there are 2 of you! The people of La Paz are also called Paceno ( should have the ny sound but can't find the way to do special characters on my tablet). Since then I have found the Potosi beer is called Potosino too)
Anselm left the next morning to get the bus to his friend's house 3 h away. I visited the Ethnography and Folklore musem which was very interesting, giving an insight into all the different tribes in Bolivia, their culture and dress and customs, music and festivals. Their ability to live in close proximity without waging war is a good lesson to modern dominator cultures like our own. I had an almuerzo (3 course set lunch) in a lovely little restaurant - noodle soup, chicken with potatoes and salad, and opted for a coffee instead of the dessert.
Some rain in the afternoon, but not long lasting, so went to organise a trip to Tiwanaku for Sunday
I was collected from my hotel at 8.30am by Patti, our guide, for the 1.5h minibus trip to the site, where there is a village and church largely built from stones from the ruins. The gold was looted by the Spanish, and most of the pottery and other artefacts spread to the four corners of the world. Little is known about the people who constructed the ceremonial centre on the eastern shores of lake Titicaca, but it is at the geographic centre of the peoples of the Altiplano (high pail between the cordilleras of the Andes) from what is now part of Peru to Argentina, and would have been very important 1000 years ago. Its construction would have well under way by 700AD but by 1200AD was declining, and eventually became part of the Inca empire. The museum had an incredible collection of ceramics, jewellery, and information about in the way of life of the peoples there. There was also the stone museum, which included the 7.3m Monolitho Bennett Pachamama and various other statues.
The ruins of the Akapana pyramid showed 7 platform levels each of 3m with stones held together by metal staples, though only partially excavated with impressive monolithic stone gateways and ditches. The Kalasasaya 130 x 120m ritual platform with carved stone walls, drainage systems and corners aligning with gateways to mark the solstices and the equinoxes had an altar still used by the locals today . There were 5 different Tiwanaku periods, each with its own architectural achievements. They also made advances in maths and astronomy well before the Inca period, reaching a population of 20,000.
The final site we visited as the clouds loomed darkly was Puma Punku or temple of the puma with megaliths of over 130 tons. Here the hail started to fall as we ll raced for the minibus and thence to the restaurant, where the noise of the hail on the tin roof was deafening. But the meal was excellent with llama steak on the menu - very tasty!
Monday I left the hotel who kindly looked after my big back pack till the evening. I enjoyed a walk to and through the park Raul Salmon de La Barra in southern La Paz, with good views of the city, took some photos, but so far cannot find a way to transfer them to my tablet so can't put them on this blog. I booked on the overnight semi-cama (reclining seats) bus to Uyuni for the start of a 3 day tour of the Uyuni salt flats and surrounding area, so had an early dinner and made my way to the bus station for the 7pm bus. A temporary goodbye to La Paz...
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