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Other entries in La Paz

La Paz

The last couple of nights in Copacabana were crazy.  A traveling band playing drums and pan pipes made it's way to our hotel restaurant and surprising to us, actually made the evening amazingly special.  I know that I have written previously about places we have traveled to that just struck that heart cord because of the immense and overwhelming beauty, but this evening was another time when we couldn't help but to give into the emotions.  Even though we sat eating western food, in a westernized restaurant, the music was just so different and really fun to listen to and for some strange reason, that music made us feel that 'wow'moment that we look forward to having each time we are lucky enough to appreciate it in a different country.  We felt so far from home and in such a diffrent place and even more suprising is that it came from panpipes!  And I KNOW I transhed Zamphir earlier, but this really wasn't cheesey!!!  We spent the rest of the evening getting to know the young band consisting of 4 young guys.  We invited them for some beers at our table and found out that one of the guys was actually from one of the Flotaing Islands on Lake Titicaca in Peru, so that was pretty cool.

They really spoke no English at all and so I put my Spanish to the test.  I have been extremely impressed with my ability to pick up not just words, but the ability to string along sentences in the correct verb tense and actually have full conversations with people.  I have no apprehension of approaching anyone to ask questions.  Buying tickets for buses is now not annoying, I call and make reservations in Spanish for hotel rooms and ordering food at restaurants is no biggie either! AND all of my ability is not just travel questions!  Sorry that I am going on about this, but we've both been impressed with my ability!  So this evening with these guys - Darwin, Raoul, Javier and Rolando was awesome.  The next evening we spent more time with them and then they came to the bus station to say goodbye to us as we left Copacabana and went to La Paz.  We never made it to the Isla del Sol because we thought we could catch a collectivo boat anytime of day, but unless we wanted to pay the equivalent of $40 we should have left at 7am.....next time!

After searching around town and the numerous buses, collectivos and various other modes of transport, we bought our tickets from Milton Tours busline.  We arrived at 1pm, threw our bags on the roof and climbed into a seat.  We made sure to get here early as we knew it would be first come-first served for seats and lucky we did.  Apparently they had oversold the bus and wanted someone to sit in a kitchen chair in the isle for the next 3.5 hours!  This brought back visions of being in Laos where laying in the isle on top of a bag of something or other was the norm.  But the people refused the kitchen chair and we were on our way at promptly 1:30pm.

The road was newly paved and easy driving as we passed through rolling hills making ourway around Lake Titicaca.  Soon, we arrived at a psuedo-ferry that was to transport us across the lake to the connecting road to La Paz.  Our bus made it's way onto the most rickety barge ever.  The gunnels of the barge sat only about 2 feet off the water and we watched our bus with all our stuff (except all the important items we have with us all the time) make it's way very SLOWLY across the lake.  The barge was tipped at a crazy angle due to the weight of the bus, but no one seemed excited about it, so we went with it.  We climbed into another motor boat and were off.  The bus came shortly after and we continued on our way.  About 45 minutes outside of La Paz the pavement turned to dirt but was no real inconvenience. 

As we drove the 3.5 hours to the capital, an entire mountain range of 6000+ meter high mountains came into view.  Who knew that Bolivia was this gorgeous?!  We had no idea!  And it was so reminiscent of Tibet!  Blue skies, white poofy clouds .....awesome!  Arriving in La Paz from the top of the crater-like valley was great!  The entire city sits in the bowl of the valley and also squeezes its way up the sides all the while being in the shadow of an immense mountain (sorry I don't know its name).  The bus dropped us off at Milton Hotel which we had no intention of staying at.  The internet site showed us a crazy all-blue room and the book describes it as a kitchy-John Travlota disco 1970's scene!  We packed our bags onto our backs and made our way up the street aware of great smelling restaurants on the way.  Our last night with the band ended in an extreme hangover that was starting to wear off now and we could feel the hunger pangs taking their toll.  We stayed at the Copacabana hotel, more like a closet for $15/night......The Milton would have been $10 but I don't think would have came in the neon room. 

We dropped our bags and set out for an awesome Italian meal that actually tasted Italian!  We called it an early night and woke up to hail this morning!  Nice.  So far, La Paz is better than we thought it would be with fast internet connection and theirs actaully many places that have WI-FI available.  Weird.  Things change quickly, I guess......and that's not such a bad thing