2. Bolivia - La Paz and Sucre

Volcan Illimani from La Paz

Traffic was completely snarled up in La Paz when we arrived but fortunately we were dropped right at our hotel by the Bolivia Hop bus, as it’s now called.  It was raining too which was the first we’d seen since some overnight rain way back in the Dominican Republic.  We had some questions and had to call in at the Peru Hop office which was fortunately just round the corner from our hotel and we were presented with a customer satisfaction questionnaire.   The questionnaire age range for customers was in decades but it ended at 50.  It just said 50+ so that showed us exactly what theirexpected demographic was – and we weren’t it.

one of my avid readers

We weren’t at all impressed with La Paz, there’s not much to see of interest and decent restaurants were difficult to find.  We’d look up a recommended one on say, Trip Advisor and when we turned up it would be a grubby little café.  There was one really good coffee shop though run by an Australian who had travelled a lot and chosen, chosen (!) to live in La Paz !  Well it takes all sorts I suppose.  He told us that at this altitude water boils at 86 C and doesn’t extract the full flavour from the coffee so he uses 50 % more coffee per cup.  Whatever he does, they make fine coffee.   We met up for coffee here by design with a German/Swiss couple, Axel and Regula who we’d met in Copacabana.  An interesting pair who were leaving for Ecuador where they planned to climb Cotopaxi, a snow-capped volcano standing over 19,000 feet high.  Serious stuff at about 800 feet higher than anything in Europe.  We heard later that Axel and the guide made it to the top, Regula had stopped at one of the refuge huts on the way up.

a swarm of cable cars

We actually thought the best thing about La Paz was the rapid transit system which is a set of linked cablecars around the city.  They run along the centre of dual carriageways and straight across the top of buildings.  At one spot the cars ran only about twelve feet above someone’s rooftop garden.  The beauty of it is that the only footprint is an eight foot square base for each support tower which are about 200 yards apart.  So no huge tunnelling project or new road building programme.

cable cars on the skyline

I suppose we should have been prepared for the disappointment that was La Paz.  Apart from the ever recommended ‘colourful’ markets, Lonely Planet lists going forty miles out of town to cycle the ’Death Road’ (everywhere seems to have one of these now) or a visit to see local women wrestling in traditional dress as a couple of the main highlights.  We weren’t tempted by either.

a typical crowd in La Paz

It’s clear that the vast majority of the population are indigenous or mixed-race indigenous people and I have to say they are very small and usually stocky with faces a weather-beaten dark brown.  According to the web the average man here is 4 foot 9 inches tall.  I can’t say I’ve seen many that short but I suppose they’re just under the radar.  Women tend to be very big around the hips and this is accentuated by the wearing of a huge number of petticoats matched with thick woollen socks.  Clothing colours are mixed and brightly patterned and bowler hats are worn by many of the women.  The style is very for small hats and they’re worn improbably perched on top of their heads.  The story we read was that when the railways were being built here in the 1920’s, lots of bowlers were sent out for the workers but many were just too small.  Some entrepreneur persuaded the locals that bowlers were very fashionable with ladies in Europe, flogged them off and they were adopted locally.  That was the story but personally I just don’t believe it.

the nativity scene outside the cathedral

Pre-Christmas festivities and decorations were in full flow 
here and the nativity scene in front of the cathedral was in oversized metal figures, including a llama and a moose along with all the usual suspects.

When we left La Paz we were headed for a place called Sucre where we planned to spend our Christmas and the only coaches were overnight ones, so we missed another huge swathe of Bolivian countryside.  It was a twelve hour trip which eventually took fifteen hours, starting with twenty minutes just to get out of the bus station and two hours to clear La Paz.  Actually from the two or three hours of daylight we had still travelling in the morning, it didn’t look as if we’d missed much.

Heather and our hotel balcony

Xmas in Sucre - excellent queueing technique

Sucre was quite a delight after La Paz.  Not a great deal to it but clean, lots of locals, few tourists, a decent selection of restaurants and a particularly good hot-chocolate shop.   We were in a lovely Spanish style courtyard hotel with a roof terrace.  They served a really good breakfast and the hotel was near the centre of town.   The Plaza de Armas was buzzing the whole time and just around Christmas itself there were hundreds of locals queuing up for handouts of clothes and small toys.  There was even a Father Christmas with kids and adults being photographed and then being given a copy printed on the spot, all for free.  When a new car with free handouts arrived there was a mini-stampede from one side of the square to the other. 

Sucre

It was disconcerting at one of the pedestrian crossings at a busy junction here when we had a green man indicating that it was safe to cross at the same time as the traffic lights were green.  A local pointed out to us that at that particular crossing it was the lit up man behind us that we had to check to see if it was safe, not the one in front.   Drivers here are better than in Peru but not much better so you do need to pay attention.  While I’m on the safety aspects I’ll mention those outdoor patio heaters again.  Half of the hotels we stayed in in Bolivia had them as well as two restaurants, all inside and unventilated.  None were in operation while we were there.

Sucre - looking across the centre

You’ll have probably gathered that I wasn’t impressed with Bolivia.  Certainly we saw far more indigenous people than in Peru but overall it was a disappointment.  I’d had visions of clear views

classic electrical work

across the altiplano, dusted with snow, just as I’d imagined Lake Titicaca but that wasn’t the reality.  If any of you want to go to Bolivia, think hard and then think again.  The only reason I think it’s worth visiting is for the stunning scenery on the last three days we had in the country in the south west near the Chilean border. 

We had our non-traditional Christmas lunch in the Restaurante Amsterdam, no Christmas crackers, pudding or Queen’s speech.  There was a specially made vegetarian dish for Heather and salmon for me but it did at least come with brussel sprouts.

and I'll leave the last word to Abe