Blockaded in La Paz

La Paz street
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We arrived in La Paz without incident. The flight landed somewhere in Northern Chile after flying over the Andes. This just made me think of the film Alive.

We met up with some fellow travellers at the airport. They were all hit by the altitude immediately an most of them were a bit bleary because of it. La Paz is 3,600 metres above sea level, or 11,810 feet. However once we got some local currency I bought several bottles of water and a bit later everyone was feeling better. La Paz airport is very quiet and relaxed, we were expecting it to be more like Lima airport which is just chaos.

There are women in traditional dress wandering about with bundles on their backs, all kinds of street stalls and general bustle, roadworks and traffic madness.

Market stall, La Paz
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We agreed to share taxis into town to start our search for accommodation. This  took a little while, mainly cause Cathal deposited me at one hostel, which was full while he went to look for one he´d read about. In hindsight this was a bad move, I don´t seem to suffer from altitude sickness whereas it always hits Cathal so he was just too woozy to even find the address and he came back tired and worn out half an hour later having achieved nothing, saying the hostel was closed.   We hoisted the bags and set off in the direction the hostel to find a doorbell which you only had to ring to be let in. This was too much for Cathal obviously. Not to worry, soon we had him showered and in bed so he could try and acclimatise.

Exhibit, Coca Museum
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The next day we wandered about the touristy streets. La Paz is very interesting, colourful and smoggy. There are women in traditional dress wandering about with bundles on their backs, all kinds of street stalls and general bustle, roadworks and traffic madness.

There are dried llama foetuses for sale, coca leaves (great for altitude sickness tea) and various crafts and knitwear.  We bought some food on the street - 5 potatoes (well we are Irish), 6 tomatoes, 3 avocados, 6 eggs, green beans and a round of cheese and it all cost 1 pound. Wow. Bolivia is cheap. We went to the supermarket which was miles away and bought some othe stuff and we ate like kings for days. We chilled out and watched loads of dodgy DVDs and generally wandered about.

Alley to the Coca Museum
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We did visit the Coca museum which was very interesting. It explains all about uses of the plant from medicinal uses, such as fighting fatigue and helping with oxygen absorbtion for altitude sickness, to cocaine and the use in Coca Cola. Apparently Coca Cola have got a license to produce 500kgs of cocaine per year. What on earth for, one wonders since they don´t put it in Coca Cola any more. Hmm.

We also walked up to the Mirador, or viewpoint which gives excellent views of the city. All these little boxy red houses climbing up the mountainsides, La Paz is in a sort of mountain bowl.

Plaza, La Paz
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Then the time came for us to leave, Cathal had stopped having headaches, so we headed to the bus station to buy tickets to Potosi (4,000 metres above sea level) to be told there was a blockade and no tickets were for sale. It turns out the miners are on strike and have blockaded some of the roads into the city. You can go North but not South. So we´re stuck here for a while longer. Which isn´t so bad.

The blockade ended a day later, unfortunately amidst reports of tear gas being deployed. We headed to the bus station in the morning to buy our ticket to Potosi.

Niamh on the mirador
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When we got to the bus station at 8pm that evening, there was a complicated system where you had to pay for a use of terminal tax - only 2 Bs and a funny luggage checking and weighing system. Luckily they were very helpful in explaining all this to us Gringos.

The bus was comfortable, not quite Argentine standards but the seats reclined (we´d paid for full cama). Weirdly though the bus stopped at 2 am for coffee. Who in their right minds wants to be woken up to have coffee??? And I slept through it but Cathal says he thinks we had a puncture during the night, the bus swerved apparently and they jacked the whole thing up and changed the tyre with everyone still on it!  He might have been dreaming it though, but I vaguely remember a hammering noise. Anyway without much further incident we arrived in Potosi.