A pleasant morning lying on the beach waiting for our boat back to Copa this morning, and we had time to check out the Inca steps leading up to where we had stayed the previous evening. Our money was running out, and fuelled only by chips and salsa and an apple, my tummy was grumbling all morning and I was started to grumble myself. Once back on the mainland, Laura did a market run and soon we were happily eating cheese rolls and on the bus again to La Paz, our final destination for the time being.
me being unhappy with dinner last night
more reed boats in the Isla del Sol port
The bus trip across the straights was broken up by a short ferry crossing where we had to disembark and our bus went on its own ferry across the water while we went onto a passenger one, a very efficient operation as tens of buses would pass through this area each hour. We seem to be travelling with young germans now who are a suitably enthusiastic peer group, and also running into other gringos from different stages of the same circuit, in that way that you do.
Our bus catching the ferry across the straights
My holy footwear
The rest of the bus trip seemed to go quite slowly as the landscape changed around us – Bolivian mountains being more rounded with funny-shaped peaks, and the ever-present snow-capped peaks of the Cordillera Real mountain range in the distance, which we had admired from afar on Isla del Sol.
the Cordillera Real
And what an amazing sight greeted us when we finally rounded the corner from El Alto – the indigenous town above La Paz itself – and saw the dramatic location of the city. It is set into a huge crater, with green land on one side and houses steeply built into the rim of the crater on the other side spilling down into the main centre. It was huge and impossible and one of the most awesome city views I have ever seen – up there with Tokyo at night from on high, or London from the air.
We used our last Bolivianos getting a cab to a place we thought we had booked by email (it turned out the message had somehow not gotten through – the guy gave us a very suspicious explanation as to why this was), and experienced the madness and bustle of La Paz on a Saturday night, we seem to be really good at turning up in new places at their busiest times. There were people, and soldiers, everywhere, all happening on streets that banked sharply upwards and downwards in each direction, lined with a heady mix of colonial buildings, new and crumbling modern buildings and dotted throughout with distinctly Bolivian religious and public buildings.
Booking in a the Austria Hotel, a colonial stalwart of the backpacker scene, we were perfectly located in the centre, a block from the presidential palace and cathedral, and wandered out to experience La Paz without our luggage. A pleasingly cheap and high-quality dinner later and we were ready for bed, determined to start our research into language schools and homestays in the morning.
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