The city has been crazily busy this week with students on mass everywhere and roads swamped with traffic. I actually missed the nice tranquility of the pervious two weeks. The weather took a slight turn for the worse this week with quite a lot of thunderstorms, rain and wind which I am guessing is pretty similar to weather in England right now so you can stop feeling so jealous! On the water balloon front, I managed to escape yet again from any public soakings this week, however a friend of mine from the Spanish school wasn´t graced with the same luck. As we were walking to class one afternoon deep in conversation and oblivious to the world around us, out of nowhere a car swung around the corner and a huge watergun met our astonished eyes. There was literally no time to react before my friend was ruthlessly gunned down with water all down her front, it didn´t make matters any better that she was wearing a white top! I am amazed at how lucky I have been, but Carnaval is still another 4 weeks away so I shouldn´t speak too soon!
My last week at the orphanage was spent with the same group of children aged 3 to 6 years old. A few more volunteers turned up this week so I managed to avoid the unfortunate situtations where 10 children were clambering all over me at the same time! The majority of the staff at the orphanage are volunteers and you can visibly see that the full time staff really do appreciate the help. Not only is it really rewarding from a volunteers point of view, you can also really feel like you are making a valuable contribution and a difference to the children´s lives each time you work there. I have grown so fond of the children, despite their often very naughty ways(!), and I felt very sad to leave them on my last day. I really hope that all of these children find a nice home one day as they deserve a happy future with a loving family.
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| Cluadia & Letti |
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| Jocelyn |
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| Millie |
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| Daniella |
I finished my second week of Spanish lessons and am very proud to have receievd a diploma to mark the occasion. This week lessons focussed on a lot of grammar and conversation, but we also kept it a bit more light hearted with watching a spanish movie and singing along to some local Bolivian songs in spanish! Although I am by no means anywhere near fluent, I do feel I understand a lot more and can make small conversation supplemented by a lot of sign language!
On Staurday morning I sadly left Sucre and headed to La paz. I decided to opt out of the 15 hour bus journey and take the 45 minute plane journey instead, which I may add was only 40 pounds more and a lot more comfortable! La Paz is quite a crazy city and completely different from Sucre. My first glimpse of it was driving in the taxi from El Alto airport and it completely took my breath away. People often describe La Paz as a city that sits in a bowl, and from the picture below you can understand why. It sits in a canyon surrounded by the Andean mountains with houses clinging on the the sides, it is truly spectacular to see. It is the second largest city in Bolivia, after Santa Cruz, and sits at an altitude of 3,660 metres, making it the highest capital city in the world.
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| La Paz |
My first day in La Paz was spent familiarising myself with the complete chaos that permeates the city as well as adjusting to the altitude. There are numerous roads with quite steep hills and it was a battle to walk up without feeling physically wrecked! The traffic is a complete maze of cars, although there are some traffic lights, cars seems to drive out from all directions and miraculously weave in and out without a single scrape or head on collision. There are markets littered all along the sides of the streets, selling anything and everything such as clothes, crockery, and food. There is one very popular market called ´Mercado de Hechiceria´, which translates as the ´Witches´ Market´ and as you can imgaine this sells very peculiar items such as shrivelled llama fetuses! The city is completely enchanting and you can easliy get enraptured with the hustle and bustle of the small little cobbled side streets and the quirky shops and inhabitants.
There are two main attractions that sprung to my mind on visiting La Paz, both of which I won´t be paying a visit and for very good reasons! One is Él Camino de La Muerte´, otherwise more popularly known as ´Death Road´. This road was famously awarded the title ´The World´s Most Dangerous road´ by the Inter American Development Bank in 1995 due to the sheer volume of deaths from road accidents each year. This road is one of the few routes connecting La Paz to the Aamazon rainforest, and is about 3 meters wide with a vertical drop of over 1,500 meters and no guardrails, so you can imagine how terrifying it must be to drive accross. It is estimated that there were on average 250 deaths a year, the biggest one being in 1983 when a bus veered off the side killing more than 100 passengers making it Bolivia´s worst road accident in history. A new road was built in 2007 bypassing one of the worst sections of the Death Road, however there are still accidents reported every year. The reason why this has become a major tourist attraction is due to the introduction of the La Cumbre to Coroico mountain bike excursion which gives crazy minded tourists the opportunity to cycle down the death road, which is now almost exclusively used for cyclists. Since 2007 18 tourists are reported to have died whilst cycling this route, the majority due to idiotic and careless behaviour from thrill seekers who are over confident and take risks, other due to poor quality of bikes provided by the tour companies. Although I do like my fair share of adventure sports, nothing would ever tempt me to cycle the ´Death Road´. I think you would have to be completely insane!
The second popular attraction is the San Pedro prison. Not all may have heard of this quite well known prison, the reason it became famous and how I have heard if it is through reading a book called ´Marching Powder´. The book tells the real life story of Thomas McFadden, a British man who got caught for drug trafficking cocaine in La Paz airport in 1995. Thomas became very well known for offering prison tours throughout his 5 year sentence in the prison - it was one of the main reasons he survived this long spell. This prison is not like any normal prison - inside the four walls it is renouned for being a society within itself i.e. the prison has its own economy and community like the outside world and it seems like the inmates generally run the place with guards only present on the outside to ensure prisoners do not escape. In order to survive, prisoners have to earn a living in the prison by setting up shops and they also have to rent or purchase a cell as these do not come automatically! There is a distinct rich poor divide where some prisoners lead a lavish lifestyle with large cells that can house their families and others that cannot even afford a cell so sleep in the courtyard. San Pedro prison is also the base for the largest cocaine factory in Bolivia. During these prison tours it bemae very well known that tourists were offered cocaine, another way for the inmates to make some unofficial income. This bizarre and corrupt world became so exposed to tourists that it was closed down for tours last November, which I can only conclude is a good thing as I think people seem to forget that this is a prison with some dangerous inmates and once inside who knows what danger you could be faced with.
On Sunday I went on a day trip to Tiwanaku which is a famous Pre-Columbian archaelogical site 72km from La Paz. The Tiwanaku civilisation are reported to have been pre the Inca era, from roughly 600 BC to AD 1200. We viewed a number of megaliths all over the site but I have heard that the Inca sites in Peru are more impressive so will hold out on some pictures until then.
There are two main attractions that sprung to my mind on visiting La Paz, both of which I won´t be paying a visit and for very good reasons! One is Él Camino de La Muerte´, otherwise more popularly known as ´Death Road´. This road was famously awarded the title ´The World´s Most Dangerous road´ by the Inter American Development Bank in 1995 due to the sheer volume of deaths from road accidents each year. This road is one of the few routes connecting La Paz to the Aamazon rainforest, and is about 3 meters wide with a vertical drop of over 1,500 meters and no guardrails, so you can imagine how terrifying it must be to drive accross. It is estimated that there were on average 250 deaths a year, the biggest one being in 1983 when a bus veered off the side killing more than 100 passengers making it Bolivia´s worst road accident in history. A new road was built in 2007 bypassing one of the worst sections of the Death Road, however there are still accidents reported every year. The reason why this has become a major tourist attraction is due to the introduction of the La Cumbre to Coroico mountain bike excursion which gives crazy minded tourists the opportunity to cycle down the death road, which is now almost exclusively used for cyclists. Since 2007 18 tourists are reported to have died whilst cycling this route, the majority due to idiotic and careless behaviour from thrill seekers who are over confident and take risks, other due to poor quality of bikes provided by the tour companies. Although I do like my fair share of adventure sports, nothing would ever tempt me to cycle the ´Death Road´. I think you would have to be completely insane!
The second popular attraction is the San Pedro prison. Not all may have heard of this quite well known prison, the reason it became famous and how I have heard if it is through reading a book called ´Marching Powder´. The book tells the real life story of Thomas McFadden, a British man who got caught for drug trafficking cocaine in La Paz airport in 1995. Thomas became very well known for offering prison tours throughout his 5 year sentence in the prison - it was one of the main reasons he survived this long spell. This prison is not like any normal prison - inside the four walls it is renouned for being a society within itself i.e. the prison has its own economy and community like the outside world and it seems like the inmates generally run the place with guards only present on the outside to ensure prisoners do not escape. In order to survive, prisoners have to earn a living in the prison by setting up shops and they also have to rent or purchase a cell as these do not come automatically! There is a distinct rich poor divide where some prisoners lead a lavish lifestyle with large cells that can house their families and others that cannot even afford a cell so sleep in the courtyard. San Pedro prison is also the base for the largest cocaine factory in Bolivia. During these prison tours it bemae very well known that tourists were offered cocaine, another way for the inmates to make some unofficial income. This bizarre and corrupt world became so exposed to tourists that it was closed down for tours last November, which I can only conclude is a good thing as I think people seem to forget that this is a prison with some dangerous inmates and once inside who knows what danger you could be faced with.
If you ask me, there's simply just not enough outlets stocking shrivelled llama fetuses these days. ;-)
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