Plaza Murillo

La Paz is definitely a city where you feel more out of your comfort zone. The altitude is intense. Walking up a slight hill has me out of breath and my lips have a slight tinge of blue. The city itself is complete chaos but it's really lovely to see how it hasn't been westernised. The city is still two thirds indigenous people. You can see the local cholitas in their traditional clothes while working at the local street food stalls. Bolivians are very local people and no franchise or chain restaurant has ever been able to survive here.

Accommodation: Wild Rover. Can't say I'm the biggest fan. It's a notorious party hostel and I'm not really in the mood for partying. It's also Irish owned.

-Day one: We arrived early on an overnight bus from Uyuni. We went to The carrot tree restaurant (Irish owned) and had a delicious breakfast. We then watched Ireland Vs Wales in the first of the 6 nations matches at the Lucky Llama. We checked into our hostel and I met my friend Grant who I originally met in the Philippines five years ago. We went to a local market together that's only on for the month of February. It's a religious market where they buy things in miniature versions. The miniature things are to represent everything that they want for the year (eg a new fridge or stacks of money). They then give these to a little god that has cigarettes in its mouth. The cigarettes need to be lit every Thursday at 12pm for a whole year. They seem to be very superstitious here.
-Day two: we had another long breakfast at the Carrot Tree and I had a planning day. I booked my flights to Rio and to Mexico city. That evening we went to a Cholita wrestling match. It's one of the recommended things to do here. To be honest, it didn't really float our boat.
-Day three: I had lunch at a famous street stall called Doña Emi. It was fried mash potato with a meat filling. It was very tasty. I then went to meet Crazy Dave, and ex inmate from the famous San Pedro prison. He's become a bit of a tourist attraction who tells you about the lawless life inside the prison and his time making "the best" cocaine in Bolivia inside the prison walls. The book Marching Powered has made it known to the world and I'll definitely be giving it a read. After that I did the Red Cap city walking tour and learned more about the superstitious ways of the Bolivian people. They believe in sacrifices when building property. This is often a dead lamba but an urban legend has everyone convinced some also used people. In the evening I had dinner with the girls at The Curry House. It was nice to get some spice again.
-Day four: I went to meet Gina for breakfast at Cafe del Mundo and then for lunch headed to get a chola sandwich. This was again a location from the Netflix documentary. I spent the rest of the afternoon back in the same cafe to do some planning and organise heading to Lake Titicaca the following day.

Recommendations:
Try all the street food you can and watch the Netflix documentary beforehand.
The Carrot Tree. Great food and Irish owned.
The lucky Llama. Irish pub
Cafe del Mundo
Cholita wrestling
Witches market
Get the cable cars around the city.Lue lisää