All That Jazz in La Paz

Talk about a spazzy jazzy place! La Paz is a city on steroids! It's jam-packed full of tall buildings both dilapidated and delightful, residents with spare cash to blow on small electronics as well as multitudes of the homeless sitting on main thoroughfares with outstretched hands and babes swaddled in blankets. I kind of loved it!! Practically every street I traversed had me battling the throngs for an inch of space on the sidewalk and the oodles of shops selling colorful curiosities made me once again wish I had space to spare in my backpack. Oh and I also found it fascinating how complicated their system of wiring seemed to be. I mean they literally have hundreds of wires crisscrossing at various intersections and I cannot imagine how on earth the Internet or cable technicians can possibly make sense of it!

There was just something about this chaotic city that spoke to me. Mind you it was mostly a bunch of unintelligible noise but I still felt compelled to lean in closer in order to try to translate the sounds I was hearing into something which made sense to me. The pity of it all was that I had such little time there due to the fact that I had to book an earlier than anticipated flight to my next destination of Sucre (I was forced to fly out on Dec 23 due to the busy Xmas holiday period). So my time in La Paz was rather like a blitzkrieg with me rushing hither and nither trying to soak in as much as I could in 24 hours.

Actually, of the three South American capital cities I've visited so far on this trip, La Paz felt the safest to me, which is surprising given the fact that Bolivia is the poorest country
on the continent. And I know I am not the only tourist around to have felt this way for I
asked a number of other backpackers whether they felt nervous walking around and all agreed
that they decidedly did not. Go figure, eh?

So what did I manage to see/do during my delightful day in La Paz?? Well, I briefly visited the fairly impressive San Francisco cathedral and saw the changing of the guard at the
Presidential Palace on the festively-decorated Plaza de Murillo. I took a long and winding
wander down the main avenue which runs through central La Paz, and stopped for a two-for-the-
price-of-one scoop of ice cream (coconut and bubble gum flavors for the curious-minded). I
ran into a couple of gentlemen (Hey Johanne and Eisho!) that I had met while riding on the bus
from Copacabana to La Paz and we all hopped on the #309 microbus which took us up to a
fantabulous viewpoint called "Mirador Killi Killi". I definitely recommend visitors to La Paz
make sure they take in this lookout point for it's killer! Along with my two male companions,
I strolled down a lovely colonial lane called Jaen, stared wide-eyed in disgusted wonder at the dried-out llama and alpaca corpses being sold in the "Witches Market" and finally paid a visit to the Museo de Coca where I got into a debate with Johanne over whether or not drugs should be legalized. I'm in favor of legalizing the whole shebanging lot of them, including cocaine,because it really and truly seems like a losing battle but most people vehemently disagree with me. Sigh, where was I?? Oh yes, this museum has tons of information on anything and everything to do with coca and at the end of my visit I opted to stuff a generous handful of coca into my mouth along with a smidgeon of ilucta (the ash of a Quinoa plant) and proceeded to chew on the wad for a good 20 minutes until the side of my cheek went slightly numb. I don't really like the taste of coca though so I shan't be partaking again. At least now I know what the sensation is like.

I dined a couple of times at a scrumptious vegetarian restaurant which was literally only a hop, skip and a jump away from my hostel but I am sorry to say that I have no idea what is was called and my attempts to discover its name using Goggle have been unsuccessful. Pity.

My final hours in La Paz were remarkable for it began to hail which made the oh-so-steep
streets slippery and transformed the city into a Xmas wonderland. Ho, ho, ho, amigos!!