Day 128 – La Paz, Bolivia

Just when you though Peru couldn't get any more farcical.

We arrived back from the Inca Trail full of joy and happiness. Sure, there had been a bit of unpleasantness when the topic of tips came up (an expectation vs reward issue), but we were on a high.

Before going on the Inca Trail, we'd bought our bus tickets to Bolivia. We were (easily) persuaded to go for a little luxury. Fully reclining seats and loads of legroom for a few extra Soles, the seemingly lovely Peruvian lady at Nuevo Continental/ CIAL bus company told us.

A week later. we turned up at the bus terminal a week later as required. We waited. The 10pm “standard” service left. We waited for our 10:20pm luxury service to be called.

At 10:10pm, we were herded into a taxi by the CIAL lady's' colleague. Our bus was apparently now leaving from another terminal. I smelled a rat, but kept my cool.

The scam became clear about 30 mins later. After being taken to the edge of town, our taxi driver flagged down the first bus that came our way. We were unceremoniously dumped on board. No fully reclining seats. No luxury service. To add insult to injury, it was the 10pm standard service we had been talked out of paying less for.

Wow. Peruvian company in blatant lies shocker (Once again; CIAL/ Neuvo Continental – take heed dear readers). Who would have thought.

I mention this story to give you some context as to how we could have been so happy to find ourselves in the capital city of Bolivia, La Paz. I introduce it to give you some insight into the chalk-and-cheese contrast between the place we were leaving, and our destination.

La Paz is a strange city. Everything about it is odd. Firstly, it's located at considerable altitude, between 3600m and 4100m. I say between, because the second strange thing about La Paz is that it is built inside a huge natural bowl in the earth. The whole place looks like it should be on Mars.

Now in Sydney (or most other cities for that matter), you tend to pay more for a view. Not so in La Paz. The higher up the side of the crater, the poorer the community tends to be. Therefore, sitting in the bottom of the whole city are the richer areas and the city centre. Whilst clinging for dear life upon the barren crater walls are all manner of ramshackle homes and businesses.

Possibly as a result of the bowl it sits in, the city is very polluted, fueled in no small way by the hordes of smoke-belching buses and minivans that race up and down the tiny, colonial streets. Crossing the road is an exercise in split-second timing.La Paz has a manic pace about it. People are absolutely everywhere. Suits on mobiles mix with little old ladies in traditional costumes. Street stalls stand next to swanky restaurants. It's like someone bought a build-your-own city kit and simply poured it onto a table. It's fabulous.

From the moment we arrived, we were engulfed in a wave of friendliness that, after the trials of Peru, was like being coated in natural yoghurt. Everyone is happy to chat. They don't want anything, they are just happy to talk. Phil, the bar manager at the Adventure Brew Hostel where we stayed, took us under his wing from Day 1. He told us where to go, what to see and introduced us along the way to all manner of denizens of this fine city.

Within the space of 9 days in Bolivia's finest, we'd seen the best her nightlife has to offer. We ate great meals at great restaurants. We checked out the weird and weirder still at the Witches Market (Llama foetus anyone?). I played futsal against the hostel's security guards team at altitude (which, for the record, hurts like hell). And then, on the Friday, we rode the World's Most Dangerous Road.

I won't go into the details of what the World's Most Dangerous Road is exactly – I'll leave that to the very capable people at B-Side, with whom we rode. I'll simply say this. The experience of racing downhill for 63km on that road, on the back of a $2,500 mountain bike, is awesome. Do it.

I'd recommend La Paz to anyone who asks. However, I was happy to leave. It's a crazy, unique, buzzy, brilliant city, but it's not a place to relax. Anyone can simply blend in, do your thing and go about your business undisturbed. However, one thing La Paz doesn't offer a high standard of living. It takes ages to go places; get things done. The pollution and altitude make you feel like you are constantly slightly fluey. Simply, life in La Paz isn't easy.

But here's the icing on the cake. The cherry on top that brought home for me why we enjoyed being in La Paz so very much. Why we both reckon Bolivia and Bolivians rock.

Upon going to the bus station to buy our ticket to head south, we asked the lady behind the counter about the bus we'd be traveling on. Her response?

“It's comfortable enough, but the toilets won't work. They never work”

And you know what? Once the truth be told, we didn't really mind.


La Paz photos can be sampled here