Fuffing About La Paz

I'm on a sick day in Copacabana so this is the perfect time to catch up on what happened over the last week in La Paz. I mentioned the last time that Jowen and I had checked into a 'party hostel' and I guess that our activities were largely focused on that place and the crazy people therein but we did get out and see a few things. Nothing cultural though... we joked with each other upon our departure that we didn't visit any museums, churches, scenic plazas, or anything else cultural. I remembered that I actually did step into a church one night for a couple minutes till a guard kicked me out for taking a picture. We did do something cultural then. Good. I guess what interests us is a little different after a year of travel. I remember when I used to look in my guide book for each city and I'd visit everything listed therein and also hike up to a good vantage point. Those days are gone and I'm undecided if it's a good thing.

La Paz isn't such a nice city but it's easy to spend some time in for some reason. It's built in a steep canyon in the mountains and thrived because of it's prime location on the silver trading route between the Altiplano mines and the sea. Of course, in the old days Bolivia was connected to the Pacific but I think that in the Mid 19th century they lost a war to Chile and got cut off from the sea. They're still VERY bitter to Chilean people and I've met travelers from Chile who lie about where they are from. La Paz isn't actually the capitol of Bolivia (it's Sucre) but it does have the Parliament and most of the business so it's considered the capitol by many. It's a pretty ugly city filled with dirty gray buildings and 1 way streets and because it's is a canyon every street is either going up or down. At 3800 meters elevation, it can be very tiring to walk around.

It's not so interesting to list off everything that I did each day in La Paz, so I'll go over the highlights. Don't get bored yet... we did have some adventures. Let's start with the dull stuff first. We'd heard that La Paz had great sushi restaurants and so this was a top priority for us. How cheap could sushi get? Well, the first place we went was just awful. We split a huge sushi platter for $15 and it was just the worst stuff we'd ever had. The rice was awful, the fish bland, and I'm pretty sure one of the maki rolls was just filled with mayo. Oh well, we tried again at a different place and had a totally different experience. The next one had actual Japanese people eating at it, and they recommended the cooked items. tried the sushi too, and it was fine, but to get a combo meal for $6 with some good meat and a half dozen different veggies was just too good to be true. We ate there 4 days in a row and now I'm way over Japanese food for a good while. There was also some good pizza in town. I'm so sick of Bolivian food. Llama steak is just awful and quinoa soup is tiresome.

I met up with a Dutch girl, Sarah, that I had met in Amsterdam. She's best friends with Femke and Fems let me know that she was living in La Paz for a while. Sarah is in La Paz for 3 months while she does research for her anthropology thesis. I think that she's studying the different social classes feelings about Evo Morales. He's the president of Bolivia and he's the first to be descended from indigenous origins. He was pretty popular at first but I think that's not so true anymore. I'm really not sure why. Maybe he's the Bolivian Obama?

Anyhow, Sarah and I met up for coffee in Zona Sud, the nicer part of town, and chatted for a good long time. It was kind of nice to meet someone that I had some connection with. I remembered her face but she reminded me that she had me and Fems over for a dinner party at her apartment. Also, when I was at Fems's boyfriend Mekki's party she took me out at 1 am to get some fresh coquettes on the street. They're like deep fried cheese sticks. We met up later that night to celebrate St Patricks day. Jowen and I met Sarah and her roomie at a nearby hostel with a huge bar and danced and drank all night. I got an Irish flag painted on my cheek since I don't have anything green. Good times, but I look like a maniac in this picture.

The first major activity that we did was to cycle the 'death road' otherwise known as the Yungas Road. It's a highway that connects the highlands of La Paz with the lower jungle region of Yungas to the Northwest of La Paz. The road starts a little over 4000 meters and drops 3600 meters over 64 kilometers. It's almost entirely downhill and makes a lovely bike ride if you're not worried about it being the world's most dangerous road. That's true actually... a couple thousand people have died one the road over the last 10 years and even more before that. Why is that? Well, it's a very narrow (3.6m) road that winds along cliffs with 600 meter drops and is trafficked by everything from large buses to huge freight trucks. People die when the overcrowded buses go over the edge while passing each other and there are frequent crosses at nearly every corner commemorating the dead.

The road is actually much safer today since an alternate route with better pavement was completed 5 years ago. While a tourist biking the road 6 years ago would have to share it with a constant flow of large vehicles threatening to push them off the edge, today it's mostly just for tourists on bicycles. That said, people still get hurt when they hit large rocks in the rough road and break their bikes or bones. We saw one guy break his leg but at least he didn't go over. We also heard plenty of stories about tourists (mostly girls) who went over the edge when wiping their goggles or passing vehicles. I didn't really think it was so scary.

We signed up for the tour with a company called Madness Tours and met up with them at 6:30 in the morning to ride out to the top of the road. All the biking companies have threatening names like that. It was damn cold at the top of the road and we all put on extra wind pants, jackets, and gloves over what we were wearing and set off. The bikes seemed well maintained and we were followed by our van in case any maintenance was needed or if someone wanted to stop biking. The first stretch was all new pavement and we went very fast down it. I took some pictures while riding though we were specifically told not to. They have a guy that takes pictures for you but I'm confident that I can do both while on the nice road. After going down 1500 meters, the old road came into sight and we started down that one. It was a rather primitive dirt road with large stones sticking up and shaking the bike to pieces. The road wound along narrow cliffs, under waterfalls that doused us, and through a lot of fog. Through the mist we couldn't even see the bottom of the canyon so I guess that makes it a little bit less intimidating.

Yes, it was a very long and bumpy road. I was pretty well soaked during the middle part of the ride when it rained a little but at the bottom the sun came out and it was kind of hot. Despite seeing someone in a different group break their leg (he went too fast over a very rough area), we were all safe and happy. Lunch, beer, and a pool awaited us at the bottom of the road. We got to enjoy that for an hour or two before making the long ride back to La Paz on the newer safer road.

Of course a lot of our time in la Paz was spent recovering from hangovers and making new ones that night. The hostel that we chose (Wild Rover) had an Irish theme and was constantly packed with English backpackers. It had a good bar and we made a lot of friends. I'll particularly remember a pair of Norwegians and a pair of Icelanders that we did a mountain trek with. The Icelanders are a couple, Hilma and his girlfriend Cerro. They're traveling around for 6 months while things get better back home (hopefully) and were very friendly. Hilma says that I should go work in Iceland for CCP games because his country has the most beautiful women in the world and they all speak English. A quick Google images search confirms that this could be the truth so maybe I'll apply when I get home. The two Norwegian girls are really young, like 18, and seem to be very enthusiastic about everything. I like that. Their names were Sofie and Marta. Anyways, Jowen and I invited the 4 of them to try and climb Huayna Potosi mountain with us.

It's a big mountain that overlooks La Paz and proved to be a great challenge. At 6088 meters high it's covered in snow and ice at this time of the year but isn't so technical a climb. We found a 3 day tour that provided all the clothing and gear that we'd need and after a little bit of shopping around for leggings and glove liners we set off early in the morning to go to the base camp. That was at 4700 meters and after lunch we put on all of our warm clothing and snow boots and hiked a couple hundred meters up to reach a glacier for training. They taught us the proper way to put on crampons and gators, and showed us how to walk on a steep and icy slope using the ice pick for balance and support. We also got to tie onto a rope and climb an icy cliff with our crampons and two ice picks. It's easier than it looks. In the night the girls played guitar and sang, I did the same, and we played cards into the night. I play a lot of cards.

The next morning we put on backpacks with all of our stuff and hiked up to the next cabin at 5300 meters. The last 200 meters were just torturous for me. I didn't get altitude sickness like I did in Tibet a few years ago, but I had trouble breathing the thin air and would get winded very quickly. Also, the last 300 meters were steep and over snow and boulders and it was pretty tiring to navigate. Finally I got to the cabin by 4pm and an hour later we went to sleep so that we could get up at midnight to hike again.

None of us slept very well at all. The sleeping bags and mats were comfortable and warm enough, but the thin air meant that my heart was beating fast even when resting and I had to breathe hard all the time. When I'd take a drink of water, I'd gasp for air afterward and I had trouble eating the meal before sleeping. It was tough just being there. Finally when we got up we were tired but still better than we were when we first got to that cold high cabin. I wasn't really sure that I wanted to try and go any higher, but I wasn't ready to give up yet.

So, we put on our headlamps and donned all of our gear minus the backpacks. I wore 2 pairs of socks, the big boots, crampons, leggings, snow pants, an undershirt, a fleece, a thick jacket, scarf, wool hat, helmet, waist harness, ice pick, and head lamp. With all that set, we were tied to the guides with a couple meters of rope between us and we set off into the night. I was surprised how strong I felt at first and after a couple hours of hiking we had reached 5700 meters. By then I was in a desperate state. I'd have to take more and more frequent rests and at 5700 meters I'd rest for a few minutes till I'd start to get cold and then I could walk about 20 or 30 steps before I'd be winded and fall to my knees. I've never felt more exhausted. I turned around at that point and hiked back to the second cabin through thick falling snow. Even that was VERY tiring. Jowen and the two Icelanders made it to the top but Sofie had to turn back 100 meters after me and Marta never made it past the first day. Altitude is a hell of a thing.

I'm happy enough with 5700 meters... it's as high as I'm going to go in Tibet 2 months from now and I've proven that at least I won't get sick, just tired. That's a big improvement over the last time I was there with Jim and Erika. The three of them that made it to the top got to see the sunrise on their walk back down but I slept for a couple hours in the cabin. When we all got back together we hiked back to the base camp but that too was very difficult and tiring. We all felt half dead during the van ride back to La Paz. I don't think that I'm going to be climbing any more mountains like that for a long time.

The other big activity for La Paz was the famous San Pedro prison. It's a smallish prison in the heart of La Paz that I'd heard backpackers talk about the world over. Apparently it's home to a lot of busted drug lords and smaller criminals who now live there with their families inside as well. It's supposed to be like a village and you can get tours. The other thing that they say is that the prisoners grow and manufacture cocaine inside the prison and give free samples and sell it to the tourists. It's supposed to be the best in the world but that sounds like hyperbole to me. I've never tried the stuff but I hear that it goes for $100 a gram in the states and just $4 a gram here or $1 in Colombia. Like I said, I've never done it but I have seen it and I like to know stuff about everything possible.

We've heard that the prison has cracked down on tours and that turned out to be true though it seems like every backpacker in La Paz is determined to try to get in. We went to the prison in the afternoon on a Thursday (we heard that more visitors are allowed on Thursdays) and while the others in the group waited in the park out front of the prison, I paced around the entrance to get a feel for the place. A gringo prisoner behind the front gate waved at me and shouted that he'd get a message to me. I waited around for 10 minutes before a woman came up to me with a phone number and the name Sebastien on a piece of paper. So I walked to a nearby phone stand and called. It turns out the prisoner is a Dutch national who claims to be in prison for smuggling 7 kilos of cocaine. Well, trying to at least. He told me that he could get us in if we gave him $50 and photocopies of our passports and then return the next day for the tour. I'm not paying anything until I get in so I rejected that idea and Sebastien suggested that I go to the side entrance and ask for some guard who would let me talk to Sebastien in person.

I tried that, but the guards wouldn't have any of it and eventually I called him back (to a payphone inside the prison, not a cellphone) to tell him that it was a no go. So, I just asked him a bunch of questions about the prison. He said that he's got another 19 months on his sentence and that life in the prison is hard. You must pay for your bed and food and if you don't have a family to support you then you must work bad jobs to earn a few cents to spend. He mostly washes carpets and dishes. If you can't afford a bed then you have to sleep outside and could freeze or get attacked in the night. Later on when I saw Sarah the Dutch girl, she said that she met the same Sebastien 9 months earlier out front of the prison. He was a former prisoner then and must have gotten thrown back in since. She thinks he's a real loser and I'm sure she's right. Anyhow, I bought him 10 packs of cigarettes (costs nothing here) and passed them through the gate before going home.

Now I felt like I'd done everything that I wanted to do in La Paz so Jowen and I caught a bus on to Copacabana in the afternoon. It's a small town on the shore of lake Titicaca that's popular for being a set off point to tour the Isla del Sol. The island used to be a religious center point for the Incan religion but today it's just a tourist trap covered in small guesthouses. We were going to spend the night on the island but I came down with a really nasty cold and I sent him off to do a day tour while I stayed in town resting and blogging. As I'm sitting in a second story cafe the looks down the street and to the docks, I'm watching a huge parade of schoolchildren go by with a marching band. It seems as if there's a parade every day in Bolivia. I saw parades in Oruro, Potosi, Sucre, La Paz, and now in Copacabana. I don't know why they'd need a parade at 10am on a Wednesday, but hey, they love to party I guess. This picture is actually a parade I saw on my last day in La Paz, though I´d think of it more as a march than a parade. Tomorrow we'll take a bus to Puno Peru and see what's going on out there.