Guest post from Peter to mark halfway:
Today's plan was simply to explore La Paz, and see what the city has to offer. From previous journeys through the city to and from the airport we had already worked out that it was a busy 24 city with roads filled with people and cars both very early in the morning and late at night.
We started our day wandering down to the Plaza San Francisco and visited the church that stands over the plaza with the same name. Much like the cathedral in Puno the dark grey stone was contrasted by the floor to ceiling gold at the front of the church.
We then wandered up through the streets to Murillo Square where the government buildings and palace are located. A further short walk away was Calle Jean - an old narrow colonial street with acres of charm. Back down the hill we headed to the markets through what must have been the 'extruded shapes' district of La Paz, as every shop was offering extruded engineering fittings for some purpose or another. We also passed through a district selling clothing for trades. This reminded me very much of my Dad's old shop, Bishops Overalls, in the centre of Brighton. In the UK these kind of shops aren't centre of town high street affairs any more, so it was interesting to see a district of these shops here.
We quickly passed through the indoor market, and found the witches market. We had heard that some strange stuff was sold here, including dried Llama foetuses. Assuming this was a bit of a myth and that you'd only find things quiet this weird if you looked hard at the back of every shop we were surprised to turn the corner to find lots of tiny fluffy llamas hanging from the ceilings of every stall. It's probably worth pointing out that no baby llamas are intentially killed and sold, so their existence is more sad than barbaric. The following streets had stall after stall of more regular offerings with people, stalls and traffic fighting for space. I'm not quiet sure the logic of the market though. Why spring onion stalls were interspersed with the bathroom and lighting stalls rather than the other fruit and veg establishments I'll never know!
Next we headed to some of the southern districts to catch the Austrian built cable car. This is not a tourist attraction, but actually a new public transport system in La Paz. There are currently 3 cable car lines in total with more planned. We caught round trips on the green and yellow lines to get a birds eye view of many of La Paz's districts, most of which cover the sides of steep mountains.
Back in the old town after a late lunch we explored some of the touristy shops selling all kinds of knitware, and visited the Mueso de Coca which, as the name suggests is dedicated to the controversial coca leaf. We learnt about its history, the origin of chewing coca leaves (which is common place here), and also a bit about its most famous product; cocaine (Coca-Cola probably comes a close second).
This just about concluded our time in La Paz and Bolivia. Tomorrow it's back to Peru!
Today's plan was simply to explore La Paz, and see what the city has to offer. From previous journeys through the city to and from the airport we had already worked out that it was a busy 24 city with roads filled with people and cars both very early in the morning and late at night.
We started our day wandering down to the Plaza San Francisco and visited the church that stands over the plaza with the same name. Much like the cathedral in Puno the dark grey stone was contrasted by the floor to ceiling gold at the front of the church.
We then wandered up through the streets to Murillo Square where the government buildings and palace are located. A further short walk away was Calle Jean - an old narrow colonial street with acres of charm. Back down the hill we headed to the markets through what must have been the 'extruded shapes' district of La Paz, as every shop was offering extruded engineering fittings for some purpose or another. We also passed through a district selling clothing for trades. This reminded me very much of my Dad's old shop, Bishops Overalls, in the centre of Brighton. In the UK these kind of shops aren't centre of town high street affairs any more, so it was interesting to see a district of these shops here.
We quickly passed through the indoor market, and found the witches market. We had heard that some strange stuff was sold here, including dried Llama foetuses. Assuming this was a bit of a myth and that you'd only find things quiet this weird if you looked hard at the back of every shop we were surprised to turn the corner to find lots of tiny fluffy llamas hanging from the ceilings of every stall. It's probably worth pointing out that no baby llamas are intentially killed and sold, so their existence is more sad than barbaric. The following streets had stall after stall of more regular offerings with people, stalls and traffic fighting for space. I'm not quiet sure the logic of the market though. Why spring onion stalls were interspersed with the bathroom and lighting stalls rather than the other fruit and veg establishments I'll never know!
Next we headed to some of the southern districts to catch the Austrian built cable car. This is not a tourist attraction, but actually a new public transport system in La Paz. There are currently 3 cable car lines in total with more planned. We caught round trips on the green and yellow lines to get a birds eye view of many of La Paz's districts, most of which cover the sides of steep mountains.
Back in the old town after a late lunch we explored some of the touristy shops selling all kinds of knitware, and visited the Mueso de Coca which, as the name suggests is dedicated to the controversial coca leaf. We learnt about its history, the origin of chewing coca leaves (which is common place here), and also a bit about its most famous product; cocaine (Coca-Cola probably comes a close second).
This just about concluded our time in La Paz and Bolivia. Tomorrow it's back to Peru!
No comments:
Post a Comment