La Paz - Not As Scary As You Think

We arrived in La Paz having heard tales of people kidnapped in taxis, fake police officers, bag snatching, etc. However, with a bit of common sense (don't just get in any old taxi, police officers should be wearing uniform...) we felt perfectly safe. We were staying in a more upmarket area called Sopocachi, outside of the traditional backpacker district, with plenty of good restaurants in the area. Unfortunately, we didn't get to try many of them - our visit was tainted by another bout of food poisoning.

The cable car descending into La Paz from El Alto

Having recovered after a day shuttling between the bed and the toilet, we braved going on a walking tour in the city centre. Although there weren't many stand-out sights, La Paz is a fascinating city to explore. It is situated in a deep valley, surrounded by snowcapped mountains, with buildings lining the vertiginous sides. Atop one side of the valley is a plain on to which the city extends; it has now been designated as a separate city, El Alto - the highest city in the world (4,150m). Lots of parks have great views across the valley. Unfortunately, they were all designed by an evil genius. Inviting looking paths wind down a cliff face, only to leave you at a high fence, with the next path that you want visible beyond, but inaccessible so there is no way to go but back up the cliff. There are also plenty of markets in the city, including the famous witches' market where you can buy love potions and llama foetuses among other outlandish things.

One of the parks in La Paz, with fence-lined paths

La Paz and El Alto also have significant, if not majority, indigenous populations. The Aymara women in particular have a very distinctive fashion with long, wide skirts and brightly coloured shawls, topped with a too small bowler hat. These were introduced by the British when building the railways, and soon became an integral part of the culture. Unfortunately for us, it's not the done thing to take photos as they believe it steals part of their soul.

Buildings lining the valley wall up to El Alto

We spent one day outside of La Paz to see the UNESCO site at Tiwanaku. The Tiwanaku culture dominated the region for around 2000 years before the Inca arrived in the 15th century. We visited one of their largest religious sites, close to Lake Titicaca. It was mostly destroyed by the Spanish colonialists, but excavations have revealed grand pyramids, statues of heads protruding from subterranean walls and giant monoliths. It was a fascinating trip to see something of a less-celebrated, but no less influential, culture than the Inca.

Faces inset into the wall in Tiwanaku

We are coming to the end of our time in Bolivia now - we have a final stop in Copacabana on the shore of Lake Titicaca before heading into Peru.

Silver Mines, Sucre, Dinosaur Footprints (And Don't Go To The Top Restaurant On Tripadvisor!)

Having spent one night in the very mediocre town of Uyuni following our salt flats tour, we proceeded north the next day to Potosí. This is a mining town that at 4070m is the second highest city in the world (the highest, El Alto, is also in Bolivia).

Iglesia de San Lorenzo de Carangas - one of the many churches in Potosí

We had heard a lot about Bolivian buses and boarded with some trepidation, but this bus ride at least wasn't too bad at all - we certainly had a lot worse in Asia. All the locals get on buses laden with blankets, clearly in the know about how cold it's going to be, we thought. I duly wore thermals and several jumpers, but actually, the bus got really hot and we sweltered in t-shirts for the whole journey. The scenery was incredible and we tried to enjoy this rather than thinking too hard about the huge drop down a cliff on one side!

View of Cerro Oro, the mine in Potosí

Bolivia is a refreshing change from Chile and Argentina in that it is far less westernised. Coming into Potosí, we passed busy outdoor markets, open trucks full of oranges, street stalls selling dubious looking snacks, etc. Everything is far less ordered than Chile and Argentina, with interesting, slightly puzzling things going on everywhere you look. The country also has a high proportion of indigenous people and the ladies of the altiplano region have a very characteristic style of dress: long skirts, usually with tights or legwarmers and sandals; apron; a boater style of hat, with two long black plaits of hair; numerous shawls; and a colourful sling across their back, often carrying a baby but apparently used for anything and everything. You really see a whole different culture here: it feels like travelling properly again, rather than being on an extended holiday.

The square and cathedral in Potosí

We spent three days in Potosí, which is a pleasant place to stroll around, with a plethora of colonial architecture and churches with intricate carvings. It is a world heritage site and an important town historically due to its silver mining heritage. During colonial times, the hill behind the town (Cerro Rico, or 'rich hill') was Spain's main source of silver and in Spanish there is still a saying 'vale un potosí' (to be worth a potosí, i.e. a lot!). We visited the Casa de la Moneda, Potosí's first mint, where silver coins were minted first for the Spanish crown and then for independent Bolivia until the 1950s. Native people and African slaves worked in the mines and in the mint, in atrocious conditions. We were told that the amount of silver extracted in Potosí in colonial times would have been enough to build a bridge of pure silver between there and Spain - but that you could also have built the same bridge with the bones of the people who died.

In the Casa de la Moneda, Potosí

In Potosí we visited a French restaurant that was highly recommended on Tripadvisor - an error, it turned out, as both of us and our Swiss friends came down with food poisoning. This necessitated an extension of our stay in Potosí,  but we are gradually getting better and have now moved on to Sucre, Bolivia's consitutional capital and another world heritage site.

Eiffel tower lookalike, in Parque Simón Bolívar, Sucre

Sucre is a beautiful city, with characteristic white buildings from the colonial era and numerous churches and museums. We've visited the Casa de la Libertad, where Bolivia's declaration of independence was signed in 1825, and walked around the pleasant park (with odd Eiffel tower replica). We've also been to see some 68 million year old dinosaur footprints, and the associated theme park with life size dinosaur models. Pretty cool - there's a steep limestone wall with the tracks of three types of dinosaur clearly visible. They'd originally have been flat but due to plate movements now look like they are walking vertically up the wall.

Dinosaur footprints

Sucre is proving  a great place to chill out and continue recovering from illness.There's a lot of expats living here so we've found several excellent cafés and even an English pub, where we watched Chile win the final of the Copa America last night. We have now signed up for a week's Spanish classes and then a 4 day trek, so will be here and around for a while longer. Our Swiss friends are pressing on to La Paz this evening though, so we're on our own again...