La Paz, Bolivia: The World's Highest City!

June 11th 2008

I woke up early, showered again to heat myself up (this hostel is 0 degrees), dropped off my laundry and ate breakfast with Anne an Filip. We then headed towards the city center to get me a plane ticket to Cusco. After talking to a few travel agents (all offering different prices and lying about availability) I went to the Aerosur main office. Strangely enough, I was told the same story but offered an even higher fare of $258USD.

I was put onto the waiting list for the $120 seats and told to call a phone number only accessible by cell phones (wtf?).

Anne, Filip, and I explored the cities Witch Market (where the weirdest things they sell are dried LLama fetuses), Black Market (where you can get anything), the Iglesia San Fransisco (with a nice view of the city), and the outdoor plazas.

There are these peculiar men wearing balaclava's that look really scary but really just want 25 cents to polish your shoes.

La Paz is another city nestled between mountains but the buildings, outdoor markets, and bodegas (tiendas) climb all the way up the slopes. You find yourself out of breath climbing to the next street in the world's highest city (elevation 3500 M).

About my plane ticket. In the end, I was never able to get a hold of anybody with the phone number so I returned to the head office at 6PM. After a long wait, I was able to get my seat for $120. What a weird system of trying to get people to pay top dollar (lying about availability (sounds like the ticketmaster scam we have all learned to hate). I bet you there are many empty seats on the plane).

To celebrate my confirmed departure, the three of us went to a 3 star restaurant and ordered the most expensive bottle of Bolivaian red wine available, LLama steaks, and sampled their Flan and chocolate mousse for dessert.

The Llama was delicious, the wine was pretty good (outstanding aroma though), dessert was tasty, so we finished off dinner with a few glasses of Johnny Walker, Amarretto, and espresso's. The best part, the total bill was $580 Bolivianos (~$80 USD). How cheap for one of the nicest restaurants in the city where we chatted for hours eating and drinking like kings.

I wake up really early tomorrow to get back to Lima. From Lima I head to Iquitos, Peru (back to the jungle) with Pat for the weekend.