The city of La Paz, is on the surface, similar to many other Andean towns and cities. Coming in by bus you start to pass the same earth-red mud brick single and occasionally double story houses with questionable doors and windows but are never the less surrounded by 3 meter walls and solid bars. But as you get closer to the city centre there is already something illuminating about this city, starting from El Alto, a city in itself, that then winds down in the sharp valley below where a city was built upon a river, with the Spaniards to one side and the indigenous on the other.
This was definitely the city to soak in, rather than get distracted by taking so many photos that you're permanently stuck behind the camera lens. Everything about it is inviting, from the smells (good and bad), to the people, the altitude and walking what always seems to be up hill in this city, to the crazy cars and buses, and the amazing changes the city has made since I was last here 10 years ago.
As such, we spent most of our few days here wandering around. We typically stayed in a tourist area of town, not to close to the bus station but not so far from it either. This landed us in the valley of the city but at the top end so most of the things we thought we want to see and do flowed down from the area we stayed in. Of course, as mentioned above, every walk in this town felt like you were going up much more than down.
A walking tour pointed out the city sites including the tourist market, the witches market with its potions and llama foetuses, and the San Pedro prison, which if you weren't looking, you could easily mistake for another building in the sprawling metropolis. San Pedro is after all a small community within the city, with its own economy, imports, and exports, and until recently just another place that tourists could visit. (The original prisoner who ran ?safe? tours was released and his replacement made an awful job such that tourists were beaten, locked up, and one raped in the short time afterwards. I hear it is possible to get in at night these days but seriously?). It's a long story to go into here, but for those not aware of the story of San Pedro, I would thoroughly recommend reading about it.
During our travels we also had to try out the new cable car system. Oh yeah. Since my last visit, La Paz has not got one but 3 cable car systems with plans to deliver another 6 more. Currently 2 of these leave from the valley up to the piste of El Alto (600m above) and the third traverses the city. They say that in takes 1.5hours to get to/from El Alto in peak hour but only 15min in the cable cars. El Alto was once the poorest of neighbourhoods of La Paz, but as the city has grown these neighbourhoods now contain many of the working class of the city. Whilst it is a poorer area than the valley, the wealth has shifted and the poor have been pushed even further out.
Continuing along our degustation of South American food, we also had to check out Gusto, the number 17 restaurant in South America. And it was awesome. Setting up a fantastic area and producing some great drinks and dishes all made from locally sourced ingredients, this was my favourite of the major restaurants that we have been to so far on this trip.
There are a great many things to do in and around La Paz, but for us we were keen to get out to the edge of Amazon Jungle. This region, which they call the Yungas, is not actually jungle yet and lies on the side of the Andes at around 2000m. It is thick with lush forest, some of which is cloud forest, and starts to beam with wildlife including monkeys and numerous bird life.
We settled in a town called Coroico. Easily accessible from La Paz now on the relatively new road, we first passed over the mountains surrounding La Paz before descending into the valley. Everyday, numerous mountain bikers make a similar trip but they take the previous road, aptly called the death road after the number of cars and buses that have slide/falled/been pushed off the side of the road. There are also a number of hikers who are dropped off at the top of the pass (around 4500m) and spend the next 3-4 days hiking towards Coroico.
Once here, it is a great place to chill out. With the combination of humidity, green sprawl, and sounds of wildlife, you could easily kick back and loose time here. Of course if you are looking to get active, it is also a great place to go for walks to waterfalls, around town, or old ruins. You can also get adventurous with mountain biking and zip lining (which seems to have become a thing since I was last here), or what we did - Go to visit the local animal sanctuary.
After a couple of days here we wished we could spend longer but it was time to return to La Paz so we could then head on to the next part of our adventure - Lake Titicaca and onto Peru.
34 846 Km (14011Km Flights, 7876Km Sailing, 12 829Km Bus, 112km Hiking, 18Km Horse riding)