Touring La Paz, Bolivia

Well, we wandered around a little bit on our own yesterday afternoon, today we had a proper tour with our driver, Jesus, and our guide, Franz. We started out with a little bit of a drive from our hotel to the Valley of the Moon.

Over the centuries, the valley has been shaped by winds and rains to create this unusual landscape of white chimneys. That’s because the surface is clay instead of rock. It’s a spectacular site. While it’s a protected natural site, the city of La Paz has grown right up to it which makes it somewhat surreal.

From there, we hopped back in the car and drove to a lookout point to get perspective of just how sprawling the city is in a bowl with houses and buildings all the way up to the sides. It’s really unlike any other place we’ve seen.

Our next adventure was to sample the public transit system here. Because it’s impossible to build a subway here the solution has been cable cars. We found it incredibly innovative and impressive.

Next stop was the historic area, including narrow, winding streets as well as the main square with the cathedral, the presidents palace and the legislature. Because it’s Sunday, everything is very low-key, and even the cathedral had already closed its doors.

Our final stop was to visit the vegetable and fruit market as well as the witches market. We had walked around the witches market yesterday, but didn’t really understand the items for sale there. Franz explained that the old rituals are still followed by great numbers of people here. The most common of these rituals is to make offerings and to burn the offerings with a particular wish or prayer in mind such as wealth, travel, health, etc.

We then went for a late lunch and came back to our hotel for an afternoon rest. La Paz is so hilly that there’s a lot of climbing. The high altitude does sap your energy.

Franz advised us Sunday evenings are particularly quiet in La Paz; even most restaurants are closed. We purposely had a big lunch so we went out and found a snack for dinner. We heard music so thought we’d go find it. Sure enough, there was a parade underway as part of carnival celebrations because it’s Lent. It was similar to the celebrations we saw in Puno in Peru - music and dancing. An unexpected treat!Leia mais