La Paz Day 1

Our first full day in La Paz was very busy. We did a walk around the historic center and popped into a few places along the way

We started at Calle de las Brujas, the Witches Market. The street goes for about two or three blocks and is lined with small shops, some selling talismans, a myriad of potions and other important artifacts for indigenous festivals and ceremonies. It was also a very colorful street with things hanging over the top like dolls and umbrellas. We continued our walk towards San Francisco Plaza. The plaza is under construction, but we were still able to go inside the church. The ceiling was very high with a lot of arches like a basilica. It has an intricate altar that was covered in gold leaf. Mass was taking place, so we didn't linger long.

After the church we walked further into the heart of the center and visited Plaza Murillo. The whole place was crawling with pigeons. It reminded me of the main plaza in Bogota. Around two sides of the plaza were government buildings. La Paz is the center of government for Bolivia, but Sucre is the capital. The historic President's Palace was a simple two story building orangish in color. The new building is much bigger and looks like a modern skyscraper with different symbols interspersed along the outside. The other building is a yellow color with a dome and is for the other parts of the government. Also on Plaza Murillo is the Catedral Metropolitana. The cathedral is built in a hill, so the entrance is roughly 12m higher than the back of the building. Inside it was very dark, but it did have some chandeliers hanging in the middle that probably light it up during mass. The nice part of this cathedral was the stained glass. Everything else was quite simple.

Following Plaza Murillo we headed over to Calle Jaen, the oldest colonial street in La Paz. On this street there are several different museums such as a Bolivian instruments museum, a sea liberty museum, and a couple others. We popped into the Mamani Mamani Art Gallery at the end of the street. Inside was very vibrant art celebrating Andean culture by Roberto Mamani. The art was super colorful and we were able to pick out some of the symbols too.

After some lunch we visited the Museo Nacional de Etnografia y Folklore. This was a really great museum. It has 8 sections ranging from textiles to precious metals to feather art. I really loved the feather art and how they used feathers in clothing. The section with the masks was also really interesting.

On our way back to the hostel from the museum it started absolutely pouring. We took shelter in a cafe and then made a run for it the rest of the short way to the hostel. Instead of riding the cable cars (I wasn't comfortable riding them in the ⛈️), we went to the Coca Museum. It was a pretty small museum, but we end up spending a lot of time there reading all about the history of the coca leaf. It was very enlightening and a worthwhile experience. After the museum we went next door to the Coca Cafe where we shared a coca wine and a coca beer. The coca wine was actually really nice and smelled lovely too. The beer was good, but we couldn't quite put our finger on the coca, but we knew it wasn't normal beer.

After the cafe, we went to dinner at an Indian restaurant. It was really nice to have something that reminded us of back home. We had a vegetarian dhal and a llama masala last night so tonight we had the chicken curry and a butter paneer. They were delicious and I definitely ate too much. After dinner, a lot of things we read suggested seeing La Paz at night via the Teleférico. We took a ride up and it was really beautiful. Definitely reminded us of a smaller Medellin.

Overall, a busy first day, but a good one!Baca selengkapnya