After a very bumpy 8 hour night bus, we found ourselves in the Bolivia’s biggest city: La Paz. Having spent the previous 2 weeks in isolated dusty towns and cities, we were happy to be back in a (relatively) modern city. We checked in to an Irish themed hostel called the “Wild Rover” and immediately ordered two cups of Barry’s Tea :) The hostel did live up to its name of being Wild...it was full of party people(there was a Fr Ted costume party one night) but we were glad of the distraction since most of the places we had stayed in up to now were very quiet.
The city of La Paz is a lot more scenic than we were expecting. It is basically built within a valley, with the central business district down along a strip in the centre and buildings extending up the three sides of the valley walls (it’s almost like a bowel). Towards the open end, there are views towards the massive snow-capped Illimani Mountain. There were some terrific views of the city from the upper rim. We took an interesting walking tour from the top of the rim down to the markets at bottom one day. It’s funny but a lot of the buildings are incomplete and some neighbourhoods do resemble a building site – people will be living in houses which are still under
construction. The reason is that they pay a lot higher tax once the building has been completed, so they will often never complete the building to save money. When you’ve travelled a bit, a lot of cities can seem the same, but one of the more unusual things we found in the markets in La Paz were Llama foetuses – yes, unborn llamas!
Apparently these are used by some of the indigenous people for rituals whenever they build a new house....they plant it under the ground where they will build the house as an offering to Pachamama (Mother Earth). We also learned that every year, the Bolivian people have a big carnival (similar to Brazil’s but different dances) with elaborate costumes that cost a fortune (a few thousand Euro for one costume!) and they have a new one every year. No wonder they are so poor! We didn’t see the carnival but we saw the crazy costume shops.
There is a prison in the centre of La Paz called San Pedro Prison (on which the book “Marching Powder” is based – soon to be a movie starring Brad Pitt). It is a very interesting place because the prison operates like a mini capitalist society: when prisoners enter, they have nothing and must sleep on the floor. If they want a cell with a bed then they must pay rent. Bigger cells command a
higher rent. Even nicer cells have flat-screen tvs! Some of the prisoners even pay for additional beds so that their families (including children) can live in the prison with them. There is a restaurant in there also, and the prisoners can even pay to be released for the day (escorted by guards of course). Apparently, one of the wealthier prisoners had a second floor constructed on his cell at the top of the prison so that he could have nice views over the city. So how do the prisoners make their money? The prison is a highly-organised cocaine factory. They also run unofficial tours of the prison which involves paying some bribe money for the guards and being escorted around the various areas by an inmate. As we circled the outside of the prison, we were offered one such tour but declined (our guidebook warns against them and besides, we had too much valuables on us) but afterwards, we spoke with a few travellers who had taken the tour and highly recommended it (the tourists are protected inside because they represent a very lucrative income stream) but we didn’t get the opportunity to go back :(
From Iquique, we flew to the final destination of our South American Adventure: Santiago de Chile. (The 2 hour flight was much preferred over the alternative of a 26 hour bus journey!) There is not much to say about Santiago, it is quite a modern city and has a very European feel, and it was a pleasant place to spend our final two days.
During some of the cold icy nights on the salt flat tour in Bolivia, we promised ourselves that we would go to a beach resort in Chile before we went home. We picked the city of Iquique in North Chile. The 15-hour day bus from La Paz to Iquique was quite scenic – passing some impressive volcanoes on the way – but it was way too long for us. Thankfully it would be our last long bus ride. Interestingly, even though we moved West, the time-zone in Chile is one hour ahead of Bolivia (normally it works the other way around).
few days in. We found a really nice hostel and met a few other travellers at one of the organised barbeques. During our time there, we managed to fit in a surf lesson and also, we finally got to try tandem paragliding. It doesn’t compare to skydiving but it was nice to spend 30 minutes in the air for a change! Iquique is apparently one of the few places in the world where you can paraglide over a city so we were treated to some fantastic views of the city before landing on the beach :)
After 3 weeks in Bolivia, it is time to move on. We are sad to leave as it has so much to offer (and it’s so cheap!) but we are almost finished our trip so need to get going. We would highly recommend Bolivia to anyone considering a trip to South America.
Not far from La Paz, there is a road that joins the towns of La Cumbre and Yolosa. La Cumbre is at the top of a mountain (4700m), and Yolosa is deep in a valley (1200m) and they are 63km 
apart. The stretch of road that connects these two towns winds and clings to the edge of a steep mountain face. For the most part it is a very narrow gravel road (just over 3.2m wide) with steep cliffs off the edge (up to 600m drop in places) and with few, if any, safety barriers. There are even sections of the road that are currently eroding thanks to waterfalls that are landing directly on the road. It also doesn’t help that there is usually fog lingering around the road!
3500m so makes for one great down-hill adventure! The first 20km of the road are actually on the new paved section and during this part we were overtaking some trucks and busses. We stopped at the first corner and (just to put us in the mood) the guides pointed out the carcass of a mini-bus down in the valley that went over the edge killing all 7 on board. The remaining 43kms are on the old gravel section and this was definitely the scariest part! However, we were so focussed on staying on the road that we never noticed just how dangerous it was in places. It was only when we were driving back up the road in the bus that we realised just how narrow some of the sections were. Hard to imagine that we went down it at such speed! Over the years there have been about 15 cyclists killed doing the ride but thankfully there were no issues with our group! The tv show Top Gear did a piece on this road, which can be viewed here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WXLxszv9eCM&feature=fvw
From La Paz, we spent 2 days exploring the nearby Lake Titicaca. This is the world’s largest high-altitude lake and sits at 3808m, measuring 457m deep in places! It forms part of the border between Bolivia and Peru. We spent a night on a beautiful island on the lake called Isla Del Sol – allegedly where the sun was born (and it’s still going strong!)
very big – there are no roads only walkways – but since we had no map, we managed to get lost looking for our hostel and ended up climbing one of the peaks on the island in the process. Thankfully we eventually found somewhere to stay. Because the island is quite a steep little mountain, there are some great views from the top and we were treated to a fantastic sunset that night. We somehow managed to get lost again the next day on our way back to the boat (we were looking for some ruins on the far side of the island but never found them). It really was a very beautiful island and we could have stayed there for a week but we were short on time.
The city of La Paz is a lot more scenic than we were expecting. It is basically built within a valley, with the central business district down along a strip in the centre and buildings extending up the three sides of the valley walls (it’s almost like a bowel). Towards the open end, there are views towards the massive snow-capped Illimani Mountain. There were some terrific views of the city from the upper rim. We took an interesting walking tour from the top of the rim down to the markets at bottom one day. It’s funny but a lot of the buildings are incomplete and some neighbourhoods do resemble a building site – people will be living in houses which are still under
construction. The reason is that they pay a lot higher tax once the building has been completed, so they will often never complete the building to save money. When you’ve travelled a bit, a lot of cities can seem the same, but one of the more unusual things we found in the markets in La Paz were Llama foetuses – yes, unborn llamas! 
Apparently these are used by some of the indigenous people for rituals whenever they build a new house....they plant it under the ground where they will build the house as an offering to Pachamama (Mother Earth). We also learned that every year, the Bolivian people have a big carnival (similar to Brazil’s but different dances) with elaborate costumes that cost a fortune (a few thousand Euro for one costume!) and they have a new one every year. No wonder they are so poor! We didn’t see the carnival but we saw the crazy costume shops.
higher rent. Even nicer cells have flat-screen tvs! Some of the prisoners even pay for additional beds so that their families (including children) can live in the prison with them. There is a restaurant in there also, and the prisoners can even pay to be released for the day (escorted by guards of course). Apparently, one of the wealthier prisoners had a second floor constructed on his cell at the top of the prison so that he could have nice views over the city. So how do the prisoners make their money? The prison is a highly-organised cocaine factory. They also run unofficial tours of the prison which involves paying some bribe money for the guards and being escorted around the various areas by an inmate. As we circled the outside of the prison, we were offered one such tour but declined (our guidebook warns against them and besides, we had too much valuables on us) but afterwards, we spoke with a few travellers who had taken the tour and highly recommended it (the tourists are protected inside because they represent a very lucrative income stream) but we didn’t get the opportunity to go back :(
