Sunday 11th Nov – Back in La Paz
We returned to La Paz for a few more days. We had purposely booked a different area to stay to allow us to visit other sites and see the city from another angle. Our accommodation was a small hotel in Spoocachi area called “The Maison de Bolivie”. It turned out to be colonial style mansion that was now a 5 room hotel, in a quiet street, which, by La Paz standards, was a haven of peace and serenity. It reminded us very much of Second Home Peru – our hotel in Lima.
Our room was large – more like a small suite, with a separate little living area and a balcony – although we were slightly disappointed to see that the advertised garden was currently being destroyed by some local builders making some alterations which we later found out from the owners was the start of construction of a small block of flats with garages. After settling in our room we we headed out to explore the area. We had a quick look around the local square – Plaza Abaroa – and then found a nice vegetarian fast food place near by, I was still not feeling fully recovered so opted for a bowl of soup.
The Sopocachi area is very different to the El Rosario area that we had previously stayed in, with its narrow streets and market stalls, flocks of poor bowler-hatted conchitas, and herds of teenage European pack-backers. Sopocachi had relatively wide streets, relatively sensible traffic, modern shops and businesses, and hardly a conchita in sight, instead there were lots of earnest business types in suits with laptops and capachinos.
We were still both feeling under the weather and had a really bad night’s sleep. We couldn’t decide what proportion of these symptoms was
due to altitude sickness and what proportion was bugs that we picked up in the Pampas. We were booked on a tour of Salt flats that involved spending 2 nights sleeping on buses and 4×4 trek at high altitude but decided to cancel have an easy couple of days.
Monday 12th November
It was yet another warm and sunny as we were taking in easy we ambled to the local high class shopping Mall, it was clearly very newly opened with some shops still fitting out. It was as good as any European style we has seen. Further down the road was another Mall with a MultiCine Mall cinema. We scanned what was on and found “Bohemian Rhapsody” was showing in English with subtitles so decided to book for the evenings performance.
We had planned a bit of culture so then headed towards a nearby Institute of Art for a bit of culture, but found that it was shut until 14:00 – it was only 13:00. So, we went back to the hotel and slept instead.
In the evening we went to the cinema and enjoyed a pizza for Eli’s New York style pizza before the film. The film was very good. We especially enjoyed the recreation of Live Aid with the cast substituted for the real Queen. It was fun to have a normal, non tourist night out.
Tuesday 13th November
We slept much better, but were still awake by 05:30. both of us were now feeling better and so headed of to find more culture in the area. Barrie had found a small art gallery / house of important Bolivian artist – Walter Solón. The walk up the steep hill was draining in the thin atmosphere but the walk proved worthwhile. We spent about an hour looking around the small gallery that culminated in his studio on the top floor. We studied his works and marveled at his mastery of multiple styles and media. Barrie was particularly impressed with his skills as a draftsman. We sat for a while on the top floor leafing through a biography of the artist by his son Pablo, who became Bolivian Ambassador to the United Nations.
After the gallery we headed towards a small local park that we had seen on the map – Montículo Park. This lovely little urban Park had monumental gateway, statuary, trees, benches, sculpture, and fantastic views of La Paz and the surrounding mountains. We spent a unlikely long time looking around it, photographing it, and trying to get out of it as all the paths lead back in!
Wednesday 14 Nov – Day 46 – La Paz
We woke up later than we had for some time, after 06:30, but to our horror discovered that the hotel WIFI was down. This was a blow because we intended to start planning and booking for our time in Argentina.
At breakfast, we were on our own – the other guest has been up early and left- so we tried to find the right time to reboot the WIFI router. The only problem was that the rooted it was above the kitchen door, to reboot in Barrie needed to stand on a chair in front of the door, however he was worried in case anyone tried to open the door while he was on the chair so he made me hold the handle tight while he quickly rebooted the router! The mission was successful and Wifi was restored.
After breakfast, we spent a couple of hours planning and booking. At last we had a draft schedule of our Argentine trip, and hotels and flights booked for Buenos Aires and Iguzu Falls. About 12:30, the sun was peaking through and we went out. We walked in a different direction, up one of the main roads, towards the city centre. We enjoyed walking up through a much more westernised version of urban La Paz than we had before, but with some doses of old Bolivia. We walked past modern offices, shops, and restaurants. We went through a small market that looked more like a market in Sheffield, than La Paz. We walked through the university area, which jumping with school kids and students grabbing fast food for lunch.
Around 14:00, it was getting hot and we found somewhere to have a bit of lunch – yet again Eli came to the rescue. This time Eli’s Confitéria Restaurant, a full menu restaurant from the same people as Eli’s Pizza. It was themed like a New York diner, albeit with inexplicable Bolivian touches – like a ceiling that looked like a piece of set rejected from a Doctor Who set. The food was very good.
After out late lunch, we bought some tickets for the Mi Teleférico. This is an aerial cable car transit system serving the La Paz–El Alto metropolitan area in Bolivia. The system consists of 25 stations along eight lines: Red, Yellow, Green, Blue, Orange, White, Sky Blue, and Purple. It stretches from rim-to-rim of the Andean basin in which La Paz lies, and provides spectacular panoramic views of the city. Barrie was a little nervous about using the Teleférico because he does not like cable cars, and the Teleférico climbs huge heights at very steep inclines. We started Sky Blue Line to get to the junction between the Green and Yellow Lines. This wasn’t too challenging as the Sky Blue Line pretty much followed the topology of the land and wasn’t too high or too steep. We then caught the Green Line from its start in the town centre, to the far end -the current east extreme of the network – and back. This involved some high and steep sections, but was just preparation for the Yellow Line. From the Green Line, we saw some of the posher parts of the city with large mansions, and some of the poorest parts of La Paz looking like shanty towns. Finally we ventured onto the Yellow Line, Barrie face matched the colour of the line at times!! The Yellow Line start in the vally and goes west and up towards the Alto plain where the airport is. This involved the highest and steepest sections of the current network, the views are amazing if you can bear to look. At the end of the Yellow Line, the Teleférico terminal sits right on the rim of the basin, with the flat plane of El Alto behind, and the vast basin of La Paz falling away in front. We had a drink/ice cream in a cafe in the terminal, which had a huge panoramic window before descending back down. All of this exploration had involved 6 journeys, on three lines – all end-to-end – and had taken three hours – the cost, for both of us, was £3.60. A good afternoons sight seeing.
Thursday 15th – Day 47 – leaving La Paz Airport issues
The morning’s TV was all about Teresa May’s cabinet falling apart, and Jacob Rees-Mog submitting a letter of no-confidence to the 1922 Committee. Oh, well. We had breakfast on our own, and didn’t even need to reset the WIFI. We returned to our room and spent a little time redistributing our possessions slightly before packing, which was getting to be almost automatic now – we knew where everything went.
At 11:00, we went to the office to check out, and request a taxi. We chatted with the hotel lady while we waited for the taxi, and she explained that the builders in the garden were on a years-long project to provide off-street parking and a couple of separate apartments – wow, at the speed they were going it would take decades! When the taxi came, she gave us little hugs goodbye – I think she’ll miss us.
The taxi ground its way steadily upwards through the labyrinth of the city, but not without making beeping noises and blinking red lights on the dashboard, and then finally deposited us outside the airport. The taxi might have been happy to get rid of us, but it obviously wanted to hang on to our luggage. The driver could not open the boot. He tried everything short of a crow bar. Eventually, with the help of another taxi driver, he managed to retrieve our luggage by demolishing part of the backseat of the car, and then using brute force to pull the luggage through the gap created – it was like watching a cow giving birth to an elephant. We were pretty relaxed throughout this process, though, which probably took, 15 mins because we were quite early for our flight.
We checked in, and then went to a cafe before going though security. The waitress couldn’t understand the words “coca cola”, until Barrie went and pointed to a bottle of it, then she brightened and exclaimed, “oh, coca cola”. I ordered a nice bowl of “sopa” (soup) and pointed at the word “sopa” on the menu, but got a club sandwich! And then when Barrie paid she charged him with the bill of the only other occupied table in the restaurant – a table with 8 occupants. Not, an easy mistake to make. Clearly not a good day for her!
After that, we went through security. There were the usual posters warning that you shouldn’t carry liquids blah blah in your hand luggage, which we have now just come to ignore here as they are not enforce. Our flight to Santa Cruz was number 670, for some reason there are 2 daily flights with in 30 minutes from the same airline to Santa Cruz , at checkin someone had written N5 on our cards in pen so we took care to look at the board to get the right gate and same it showing R19 which was in a different part of the terminal. We were not sure what to do bur decide head to R19. We waited there, but as the departure time arrived no airline official had turned up at the gate. Then I heard an announcement that flight 670 was boarding through gate N5 so we rushed back through the airport to gate N5. But there, the airline official sent us back to R19. Again we waited at R19. Still no one came to board the plane, finally there was an announcement that 670 was boarding, but this time through gate R18. We were let through to he gates but found ourselves in a corridor with other people going to different planes. We walked down long corridors with different air docks to different planes. As we approached a fork. The people in front of us went left and we started to follow them. Fortunately there was a man in a hi-viz jacked who I asked “Santa Cruz” ? and he pointed right. We complied and finally boarded a plane and took our seats. After everyone had boarded, there was an announcement from the pilot – “Welcome to our flight 672!!!!” We panicked!!!! And then we corrected himself, “Welcome to flight 670”. Thank god!!!! The flight itself was uneventful.