On The road to La Paz & La Paz

On the road to La Paz

Thunder and lightning was the alarm this morning, we thought that our good weather had come to an end but that was not to be the case.

This is a day that will not be forgotten with some lovely sweet sights tempered with some soar experiences. Let us start at the beginning, leaving Copacabana we followed Lake Titicaca (there are two spellings, the other is Titikaka) which offered us some spectacular views. It is so strange how, when you cross a border, landscapes and topography changes, this was no exception. The rolling hills were deeper and stronger and to start with we could not see the mountains.

At one point on our journey we had to cross from the west side of the lake to the east, there is no bridge so here we had an exciting adventure. First the bus has to go on a barge and we go on a small boat which doesn’t sound bad but wait until you see the pictures of the inside of the boat or the barge the bus was on!!! The boat should have been condemned; the floor boards were broken and split with great gaping holes in the flooring. As for the bus I can’t even describe how primitive the barge was only pictures will show. The bus was not anchored on the barge and as we were watching it come across it hit a wave, the way it tipped from one side to the other we thought for sure that it was bye, bye baggage! It made and so did we so we continued on our journey.

As we descended down into the Bolivian alto plano (high plains) it was similar but not the same as we saw on the train a few days ago in Peru. The plains stretched for miles on one side of the bus but these plains did not seem to have many farm plots as we had seen before, out the other side of the bus the foothills were starting their ascent to the mountains. Now one of the sweetest sites of the day, we came around the corner and there in front of us was the King Andes range! The sky was blue, the snow glistened the site was magnificent. From their name you will have guessed that they are the highest of the Andes towering over us at over 20,000 feet and moew. Considering we were at about 8,500 feet and they still towered over us. We have been finding it amusing that when a mountain is very tall or a site we are visiting is high our guides always tell us the height in feet; all other heights are given to us in meters!

We continued on our way without much interesting to see, so a few heads were bobbing. We had our ever frequent bano stop that, for a change, was not a place of terror (that came later in the day) but really very lovely with beautiful flowers planted in the little courtyard out front. From there we continued on toward the city that the La Paz airport is located in and for the life of me I can’t remember what it was called. The city is situated on a plain 300 meters above La Paz, now some of our terror takes over!!!! We were reminded that this is a 3rd world country which is about 20 to 30 years behind us and that one thing is true in there broken down old cars they do not obey the rule of the roads. Buses, cars and vans all converge at breakneck speed playing chicken with the other. Going down these 300 meters into La Paz our driver passed another bus that in turn passed us with no more than about 10 inches to spare. I was sitting on the side of the bus with several other women whose breaths expelled in fear quite load. That was the start of our introduction to La Paz which has not been good. Anything and you have ever heard about Bolivia from movies or the new, especially La Paz, is true and it is even worse.

Once we had arrived Pablo took us to a little pastry shop where we had what are called Soltines (I guess you would call them Bolivian meat pies) they were quite good. Back to our hotel which is The Plaza, part of the Radisson chain, where we all discovered that our toilets didn’t work. Can you believe that the water for the toilets is State controlled and water for the taps is a municipal responsibility? They switched to a temporary water supply so I guess if that goes we will have to resort to the old pouring water down the toilet. That was just the start of our problems.
We met in the lobby for some site seeing in their horrid traffic jams with roads which are hardly bigger than the bus. Our first stop went Ok but when we returned to the bus which was parked facing down a steep hill we discovered him under the buss as the bus had a flat tire!!! Now these busses are all at least 30 years old, Pablo said he had never seen a first class bus in any of the areas he has ever travelled in Bolivia. This was going to prove a problem so they hired a van, again old, which sped us away in the heat of the day to the Main Square. Harry, who is 83, was having problems so the guide found a taxi for him sending him home. After the tour of the square our bus joined us again and off through these horrid streets to the museum. Our first stop in the museum was to the banos which were the 2nd worse we have experienced today. There were some beautiful gold artifacts in the museum from Inca time but most of us have just plain been museumed out. Back on the bus we were so hot, the windows didn’t open and I think everyone was exhausted we had been on the road a long time so thankfully Gary asked if we really had to go to the next stop. The next stop was out of town 30 minutes, 30 minutes to see and tour it and 30 minutes back if we were lucky with the traffic. There was a vote, we all returned to the hotel - thank heavens.

About ½ the group is going to a song and dance dinner evening, with the other half fending for ourselves. Bob and I decided not to go as last night I had only 2 hours sleep and he doesn’t really enjoy that type of evening anyways so I think he was glad to stay home and rest. I was surprised about not sleeping last night as I have been sleeping very well so far on this trip, hope I will catch up tonight.

We have just returned from having dinner. We decided to have dinner in the hotel and you cannot believe the lovely dinner we had for $12.00 each. I have beef tenderloin and Bob seafood pasta, both came with salad and we had one dessert. All of that and we still had not used up our whole $12.00 allocation.