During the busride to La Paz we had to cross a lake by boat. The passengers had to go out of the bus and into a little boat, but the bus itself also had to crossover. They´ve got special barges of wood for this. They just drive the busses on and one guy with to normal engines tries to get the barge over the lake. Look at the photos and you´ll see what I mean :)

La Paz really is a different world compared to the cities in Peru. Everything happens on the streets. La Paz is build in a big valley, but before you reach the valley, you drive through El Alto. El Alto is the city where all the people from the countryside of Bolivia end up looking for a better life. This is a real beehive and a big mess. And then just out of nowhere the valley of La Paz appears with the huge mountains in the back. Impressive.

We had our hostal in the old neighbourhood with all the markets and lots of women still dressed in traditional cloths. These women are called cholitas. Really everything happens on the streets. Shops, sidewalk, marketstalls, traffic. There was one square, not too big, which looked as follows from the outer rows to the inner : two rows of marketstalls, pedestrians in many rows, and then in the remaining space, which was very little: busses, cars and motorbikes. Bustling and impossible!

But the city has more to offer. A very big diversity in people, colours, smells, views and ways of life and everyone is living right next to eachother. Incredible poor and filthy rich, indigena, criolla, meztizos, caucasian, etc. If you walk down even further into the valley you end up in beautiful almost European city style parts of La Paz with beautiful parks and beautiful buildings, chique restaurants,etc. Because La Paz is in a valley there are some speculations about the actual height, but the highest point (El Alto) is 4100 meters. Try walking up steep streets at this height! We really came to appreciate oxygen :)

It really was a treat walking through La Paz. The shops, the people, the markets, the food. Yeah, the Witches´ Market, with all kinds of amulets, beans for good luck, small gods in mini-size that carry all kinds of goods, also in mini size, to bring you all these items in real life, etc. And of course (see photos) the llama foetus. If you build a new house, you have to burry this llama foetus in the ground as an offering to Pachamama (Mother Earth), because you first have to give something to her, before you take space from her. All a matter of balance! If you don´t do so, your house will be jinxed.

The food, by the way, Joost had¨the world most dangerous Vindaloo¨ (exceptionally, ridiculously hot Indian curry) and afterwards could not talk for a half hour. Crazy! The dish is named afterThe World Most Dangerous Road, which is close to LaPaz. Many people cycle thisroad. We didn´t because oftime, buttherefore we had this insane curry :) If you finished the whole curry, you would get a T-shirt saying you survived the world´s most dangerous Vindaloo. Unfortunately, we didn´t finish it.....

Close to LaPaz is the archeological site of Tiwanaku. The Tiwanaku civilization was just as big and well-developed as the Inca civilization but is less-known because it was pre-Inca, and therefore is hardly mentionedin the historical records of the Spanish. This site is in its early stages of archeological work, and thereforemore important finds are to be expected in thecoming 20 years. But already plenty to see now and the landscape is beautiful.

A last geek-fact about La Paz: because the airport is at 4100m, the air is so thin, airplanes need twice the length of a normal runway to land and take-off and twice the speed to compensate for the low atmospherical pressure. Planes are even equiped with special tires. So off we were after this looooooooooooong runway, to Lima!