We realised just how huge Lake Titicaca is after somehow still driving next to it for most of the bus trip to La Paz on the 14th, it feels as if you just can´t get away from it! Soon after leaving Copacabana, our bus stopped at a ferry, we piled off, had to buy a ticket for a boat ride across the lake, while our bus boarded a ferry and beat us across.
After a few too many nights of cold/none showers we booked a little $20-for-the-room luxury at Hostal Republica, and upon arrival in La Paz took a taxi straight there (the privelage of having 4 travellers to share the cost!). We had an absolutely huge almuerzo for 15 Bolivian Bolivianos (otherwise known as BOB´s) and so for dinner we just hung around the hostal´s cafeteria drinking hot chocolate, when we had a surprise visit from Mark Crandon and Dave Collett, who are cycling through South America, and up until now, have been always just ahead of us... It was such a cool surprise, and so fantastic to see more fellow travellers from home and share stories...a good deal of time was spent comparing beard length too... :)
This morning, Nats and Daryll flew to Rurrenabaque to do a 3 day tour in the Pampas, and we had a relaxed Sunday morning sitting in the sunny Plaza Murillo listening to a brilliant bolivian brass band...what fun!
La Paz has a bit more of a busy, crowded feel to other South American cities we´ve visited so far, and has some fascinating newer scruffy market areas, as well as lovely older, derelect colonial areas, and it is surrounded by steep sides and mountains, so that it feels like it is uphill in any direction that you walk. The ladies wear layered and tiered puffy skirts (you can buy any colour you can think of in the markets here), tiny bowler hats that somehow manage to perch on top of their heads, and wear their hair in 2 long plaits down their backs, decorated on the ends with pompoms.
No comments:
Post a Comment