Brett and Emily in South America: Oh La Paz is so cheap...

Our trip from Uyuni to La Paz began with a 2:00am train ride from Uyuni to Oruro. Early in the day all five in our group sat in line and debated which class on the train we wanted. Our choices basically came down to either first class (for 86 bolivianos=$12.50) or second class (for 40 bolivianos $5.75). Well our decision became easier when we got to the front of the line and they told us only second class (or ´popular´ class which we chose not to find out what it was because it was something like 20 bolivianos) was available. So after spending a few hours in the train station our train finally pulled in. We had to wait a bit because our car was being added on to the train. After we finally boarded we were pretty glad that someone along the way had told us to make sure to bring every layer of long clothing and our sleeping bags on to the train, because even though they told us the car was heated I personally never felt a drop of heat from the heater all night. When we finally got in to Oruro around 9:00am we quickly hopped in a cab with our Portuguese friend (the Australian couple had forgotten something in our jeep when we arrived in Uyuni and never boarded the train because they wanted to go back to the tour agency and get it the next morning, which we later found out the succesfully recovered it). We hopped on to the next bus to La Paz and finally arrived in to La Paz in the early afternoon. After checking in to the hostel (which was much more like a hotel), which is in an area known as Mercado de Brujas (the Witch´s Market) we decided to walk around the main market area (which is generally reffered to as Mercado Negro, or Black Market). The first day because we were kind of tired we just explored a small fraction of the market area but some of our highlights included buying a huge 2L mug of fresh fruit juice for cheap and walking through hundreds (and I´m serious about the number here) of shoe stalls looking for sandles to replace Emily´s chocos.

The Witch´s Market (right near our hostel), it is mainly filled with really touristy shops

San Fransico Cathedral

The next day we went to the US Embassy so Emily could get more pages added in to her passport (I had to do a similar thing a year ago in Israel, and yes we travel that much). After we dropped off her passport we decided to do a walking tour recommended in Lonely Planet. As we started to walk we got side tracked by the Black Market and our need to replace all of Emily´s lost goods. NOTE: In the next post we will play a game we like to call Price is Right: Bolivian Style, where we will let you take a crack at how much we spent on Emily´s new stuff. We proceeded to walk around the market for several hours purchasing: a backpack, sandles, headphone splitter, baseball cap (a nice blue Mets one!), winter hat and gloves, sunscreen and hand santizer, head lamp, rechargeable batteries, a new journal, and some more smaller things. Lets just say we for sure didn´t bust our budget and we were in the right place if we needed to buy/replace stuff that had been stolen. We spent the majority of the day just wondering around the markets checking out everything: key makers (who still use filing instruments and foot pedal things), yarn, traditional Bolivian dresses, fruit shake vendors (which we stopped at quite often), and pretty much anything else you wanted you could find for cheap. After replacing mostly everything, we headed down to Plaza de San Fransico (the main plaza in La Paz). In part of the square we half accidently walked through these 3 large markets which had a dozen or so food stalls. The food stalls was basically one lady/cook and about 4-6 seats. Each lady had her own specialities (fried fish, llama dishes, soups, and other regional cusine) that ranged in price from 5-15 Bolivianos. We decided to sit down at one lady´s bench who was serving assorted fried fish. We both ordered trout with some fried sardines on top...for $2 it was amazing! We chowed it down. After finishing up and paying we went back to the US Embassy to pick up Emily´s passport and started walking back to the center of town. During the evening we booked a downhill bike tour the next morning and on our way to dinner we decided to try Quinoa Juice, which was surprisingly warm and delicious. We stopped by a local semi-gringo pizza place (it was in a gringo hostel neighborhood, but compared to the other pizza places in the gringo area it was much cheaper.) We could tell the place was kind of geared towards Israelis as they had Hebrew everywhere, pictures of holiday dinners at the resturant, and also on the menu instead of an area entitled ¨Vegetarian Pizzas¨ there was a section entitled ¨Kosher Pizzas.¨ As we were the last people in the pizzeria for the night I struck up a conversation with the owner who happens to be Jewish, from Bolivia, and made aliyah many years back and then returned to Bolivia (¿random?).

A shop with traditional Bolivian Dresses

Look Mom all the Yarn you could want...

A Shot of the Black Market

The infamous really super cheap food stalls

Yep Emily and I devoured our fish...YUMMY!

Typical looking La Paz bus, they also had ones in shades of green

Sheishbeish and Fresh fruit smoothies (that cost all of 3 bolivianos)

I put this photo up more just to see traditional Bolivian women dressing. However this picture was taken outside the Education Ministry during a protest

The next morning we woke up bright and early to do the major tourist activity for backpackers traveling through La Paz (and no I´m not talking about doing hard drugs for a cheap price), The Death Road! Now a little bit of history about the road. The road descends from 4,700m to 1200m in about 63km. The road starts in the colder mountain top area and descends all the way into rainforest. At several points through the whole bike ride there are major cliffs that go up to the side of the road ranging in depth from 100 to 1000m. The majority of the route is along a dirt road which is for the most part only passable in one direction. Until about 3 years ago regular traffic (in both directions) was allowed on the road, until a new road was built that bypasses the gravel road. Evidently since they began doing bike tours on this road over 15 years ago, 18+ people have died, the majority from losing control of the bikes on the gravel and going over large cliffs. That being said...We were picked up early in the morning by our company, The Radical Rides (we highly recommend them), and headed out a hour or so from La Paz to the begininning of the route. The top of the route is pretty cold as it was the morning and 4700m high. As we began to descend the temp warmed up and once we got in to the jungle area the weather was pretty humid and warm. The entire time riding took probably around 3 hours. I had a few close encounters of losing control of my bike going downhill, but never fell over and for sure never near an edge (should have mentioned this before, but there are no guard rails at all). We stopped a few times for snacks or to take pictures at cool points. Our guide also pointed out some interesting stuff to us like why along the jungle area there are large parts of vegetation in streaks that looks much newer. Any guesses??? It is where trucks or busses lost control and fell down the cliffs before the road was closed to actual traffic. It was a pretty great ride and we saw some amazing views. All of our hands hurt pretty badly afterwards (even with two good suspensions, your hands grasping the handle bars on pretty rocky gravel for 3 hours straight is painful). After th bike ride the company brought us to a swimming pool, showers, and buffet lunch before heading back 3 hours (along the new road) back to La Paz.

The following pics are a random selection from our Downhill Biking Trek on the ¨World´s Deadlist Road¨

Our group at the top of the route haviung breakfast

A view from the top

First stop

Hi Em

Brett going down the mountain

Emily far behind...

Emily going through the fog

Us heading down the mountain

The next day we were planning on heading to Copacabana, Bolivia on Lake Titikaka. As it was only a 2 hour ride and several companies went there throughout the day we decided to take our time. We headed back down to the food stalls for lunch and this time went to another lady´s ¨cubicle.¨ For 5 Bolivianos (75 cents) I enjoyed a piece of fried Guinea Pig with a side salad and potatoes and rice and Emiy had the same but a veggie pattie instead. We then headed to the bus station and began our trip to Lake Titikaka.