Solo South American Adventure: Part 1

A little worried I wasn't going to get out of Denver to start the trip!

Wednesday May 1, 2013: Denver to Dallas to Miami to La Paz (American Airlines)

Phew...what a long day of “Please move your seats to their upright position and place your trays in their locked position for landing!” It did fee like I was doing a gradual introduction to full fledged Spanish speaking, though!

Glasgow 0%

Denver 25%

Dallas 50%

Miami 75%

La Paz 100%

Pano looking SW of La Paz

Thursday May 2, 2013: La Paz

6:00 a.m. Welcome to La Paz! I was luck enough to have all 3 seats to myself on the flights, so I actually go to sleep lying down for a few hours!

Well, I knew that getting through Customs/Border control was going to be a bit of a pain in the rear since I decided to wait till getting to Bolivia to get my Visa sorted. I went to great lengths to be prepared, having previously had my mom get crisp, brand new bills for the $135 visa fee. Well, it turns out that all 6 of my $20 bills were cut slightly “off”, not quite centered. I would have never noticed, but it was a big deal to the Visa guy. I stood there looking as if I didn’t know what the problem was for about 5 minutes before the guy finally decided it was okay, after consulting with at least 3 other employees! Although, I wouldn’t say that I really know any Spanish, the 20 week course that I took as already really helped a lot, and I wouldn’t want to be here knowing much less than I do! After about 1.5 hours with the Visa process and some time changing some $$ into Bolivianos (Bs), I got a taxi to my hotel. I had heard horror stories about taxis in both Bolivia and Peru, so I was a little hesitant at 1^st, but thought that the airport taxis were surely going to be the safest kind. J I made sure to clarify that the cost would be 60 Bs before we headed out, and then tried to have a basic “hello, how are you?” conversation with my taxi driver.

Arriving in La Paz after landing in El Alto:
looking south at Illimani Peak 6,438 m (21,122 ft)

The view of La Paz City as you come in from the airport is truly breathtaking, and my taxi driver kindly pulled over for me to get out and take some photos. I had a brief moment of panic of “Shit, is this were he drives off with everything I own?”, but it was all good! I got to the hotel at 8:00, and my room was already ready, so they let me check in early...straight to bed for me! 12,600 feet and a super polluted city are not the best remedies for people struggling to fight off an upper respiratory infection! I got up and had some breakfast and went straight back to bed! A long way to come just to nap! Haha Oh well, after having a bit of a breakdown when I checked in and the guy asked me why only 1 person and not 2, and where was Tim since the room was booked in his name, I decided that I had earned a day to just be lazy and not do a damn thing if I didn’t want to! After a bit of lounging, reading, and sleeping, I decided to stop being lazy, but Mother Nature had other plans!! It started raining, sleeting, and snaining with epic thunder, thus making up my mind to call the day a bit of a wash!

A little bit of Scotland all the way  down in Boliva

I managed to get out and go for supper at a highly recommended curry house. They had Irn Bru on the menu, I couldn’t believe it! I went for the Llama Tikka Masala to justify my pseudo-lame choice of a curry house instead of something local. Being a solo, blond female in a chaotic, foreign city where I don’t really speak the language doesn’t make me feel very safe to be out exploring much after dark, which unfortunately is about 6:30 p.m. Needless to say, I was back to my room by 8:00 where I fell asleep in all of my clothes by 8:30...knackered!!

Friday May 3, 2013: La Paz

Today, I was on a bit of a mission to tick off a few of Andy’s La Paz bucket list suggestions. As a result, I ended up walking about 5 miles and climbing god knows how many feet in elevation. This is 1 hilly city!!

Busses that must get their tranny's replaced
often to deal with these hills!

One benefit (there aren’t that many, I have decided) to being here by myself is that I don’t have to check with anyone else to see if what I want to do suits them or not. Today I ended up wandering towards a rocky feature, as I’m always more interested in outside than museums, etc...especially when they are all in Spanish! Plus, most things outside end up being free, and I am beginning to learn that I am a bit of a cheapskate. Not really, but I just don’t see the point in spending $$ if it’s not something that I’m really interested in or really want! Anyway, I ended up wandering towards a highly “advertised” urban park. I could see the damn thing and there were banners all over for it, but I’ll be damned if I could find the entrance!

About the only green that I could find in the whole city!

There were fences and closed gates everywhere that I tried. I didn’t figure that it would be A.) very lady like in my skirt, or B.) recommended socially to climb the fence, but it did cross my mind. After several dead ends, I finally managed to make it “in” to the urban park which allowed me to climb a good ways out of the other side of the valley where I was eventually treated to some absolutely amazing views of the city, both east and west as well as to the looming 20,000+ft peaks to the south! Man was I glad for my random wandering detour. I threw down for a $0.45 ticket up the inclinator for an even more impressive from the “top”.  I met a nice German guy whose name already escapes me who I thought I recognized from the MIA-LPB flight on Thurs. He was kind enough to take a picture for me, and entertain some random banter for a little bit. It gets really lonely travelling alone, especially when you’re not staying in forced social situation hostels, which, to be honest, I’m not really up for at the moment. I’m still trying to get over my pity party of just really wishing that Tim were here at some point. If I just keep telling myself to get over the pity party, I’m sure it will just happen, right?!?

Tonight I have decided to just come upstairs for a glass of wine and forego dinner, but I have quite possibly the friendliest “waiter”. He brought the menu for pizzas, and I couldn’t bring myself to say no, so pepperoni and olive pizza for dinner it was...did I mention the brownie con helado (ice cream) that I had after lunch? No, I didn’t think so. Haha  not even my M.O., but it was delicious nonetheless, and I could just imagine that Mr. Jackson would have been more than happy to share it with me. Anyway, I was hoping that being to much closer to my 2 favourite wine regions (Chili and Argentina) , that I would get some good wines, but so far I am 0 for 2...tonight’s is almost as sweet as a lolli, but at £1.50 a glass, I’ll just shutup!

Typical native dress of the Bolivian Cholita...
not sure how the bowler hats stay on their heads!

General Impressions of La Paz

·      Very densely populated

·      Traffic is horrendous

o   Nobody indicates that they’re going to turn

o   Everybody just honks their horns instead

·      Pedestrians are worse than in Glasgow

·      Shared microbuses are crazy (to observe anyway, I’ve elected to just walk everywhere instead of trying to brave one!)

·      Lots and lots of stray dogs

·      SOOO much pollution and trash

·      Traditional little old Bolivian women in native dress and bowler hats (Cholitas) are endearing and charming

·      Foreign tourism isn’t huge here, but it’s obviously getting bigger and bigger and it’s a bit of a shame (same as everywhere, I suppose)

·      People here aren’t ever really in a hurry (even though they honk their horns a lot!), but I suppose it might have to do with the lack of oxygen! Can you say out of breath?!?

·      There is very little green in this city, even though the urban park that I found proclaims “Verde La Paz” (Green La Paz)

·      Football is huge here! They were playing 5 a sides on all of the pitches that I saw.

·      Men/boys seem more respectful of women than in other parts of the world, i.e. not “cat calling” and whistling

Saturday May 4, 2013: La Paz

I woke up after almost 10 hours of sleep again! I’m not feeling super, still fighting off the cold/upper respiratory crap and my stomach doesn’t feel 100% either. I have spent all morning trying to plan out the things that I’d like to do and sadly, I keep coming back to the thought that I’d really rather just be at home with Tim, but never mind, I’m here, and I’m determined to make the most of it! Decided to go to lunch at one of Andy’s suggested locations (La Casona), and I was delighted by the included salad bar! I didn’t realize how much I’d been craving fresh vegetables! I ordered the Pique Macho which turned out to be nice pieces of steak mixed with sausage (hot dogs??) pieces, onions and peppers mixed with French fries with a light beef gravy/juice. It was well, interesting and very salty, but the beef steak pieces were really good and apparently it’s a dish specific to Bolivia, so there you go and it was cheap! $5 for the 4 courses plus a $2 coke!!!

After that, I showed up 2:45 to book my Jungle adventure but apparently they’d already gone home for the day even thought they told me the day before that they would be there till 7:00. Luckily the lady at the tour agency next door felt sorry for me and did all of the booking for me, including finding cheaper plane tickets for met! Her English was better than the Chalalan office guys so it was better in the long run anyway. That took nearly 1.5 hours to sort, after which time, I decided to head back to the hotel for a quiet (for me, not everyone on the street outside of my window!) night in. Although I feel pretty safe walking about, I’m not really interested in randomly trying to find people to hang out with at bars or whatnot. I guess I don’t want to push my luck being a solo blond female walking about after dark.