Our original itinerary had been to travel to Puno, Peru to spend a day or so around Lake Titicaca and then fly on to Lima. But because of civil unrest in Peru particularly in Puno region, we were diverted to La Paz. Little did anyone know but we faced social ‘issues’ in La Paz also however ….. after an absolute shocker of an overnight bus trip from Uyuni, La Paz was an experience I shan’t describe in much detail. Suffice it to say it is a dense dirty city that sprawls up the sides of a deep canyon.
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| Valley of the Moon |
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| It seems very much a street culture particularly in the older part of town |
Street people, mostly the indigenous Aymara (descendants of the Incas) squat along the sidewalks and gutters eking out an existence by whatever means. It’s a different life to what we had seen so far in Chile and Bolivia. Throughout our first day explosives were detonating around us. It was a bit scary even if, according to our guide, they were 'firecrackers' . There was a city-wide demonstration/protest instigated by the teachers to try to force the government to become a formal socialist State. The protests are ongoing with planned city lockdowns and demonstrations on every intersection over the weekend starting Friday. And to think we were trying to avoid social unrest in Peru!
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| Cute local transport |
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| Indigenous dress is very common attire for the indigenous women |
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| We were forced to take narrow streets because of strike-created congestion in main roads |
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| Our guide/driver locked his car. "Lots of theft?" I asked "Not at all" he said hand on heart and I thought... hmm |
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| Everywhere street markets |
We had a rather short stay in La Paz. Basically an afternoon to see the city which started with a trip to the Valley of the Moon (a different one!). The erosion in the canyon where La Paz is situated is hard to believe. Yet still people build on the very edge of the canyon – and the rains come and they get washed away! We rode the Teleferico (cable car) and had amazing views out over the city.
I was a little disappointed in our visit. Our guide spent a lot of time on the phone (not aware of where we were?) and sneaking pix of us for his FB page - until I told him to stop. Despite warnings from our guide that we would not find eating places that would take credit card, we managed to find a number of them and one particular wee hole in the wall, amongst the chaos of the streets, served delicious food.
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| Guide on phone with us trailing behind - we had to keep up or ... |
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| Fairly specky views |
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| Excellent network - if you live at the top or bottom of the canyon! |
Then thankfully we escaped to the tranquility of Isla de Sol in Lake Titicaca.
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