Our Great Adventure: La Paz Day 259 04/06/2015

After another lie in and lazy breakfast we headed back down the hill to the San Francisco museum next to the church. We arrived to find it closed and no sign/reason to indicate why. We also noticed some of the shops were shut and after going to the Cafe del Mundo again for a couple of hot chocolates, our searching on the web yielded no answers. Well I suppose this is Bolivia and impromptu strikes, fiestas, buses not working are an everyday way of life. Noting our afternoon tour didn't start until 2pm we headed back to the hotel, where the receptionist enlightened us; it was Corpus Christi today and so some shops, people and churches observe this. She seemed surprised we didn't know this but we explained we weren't catholics! We went for lunch at Cafe Sol Y Luna and then went upstairs to Oliver's English Pub to wait the start of our afternoon tour, again with Red Caps. As per the norm in Bolivia our guide arrived 10 minutes late and we found out it was just ourselves and a Brazilian lady from San Paulo on the tour. Ed, our guide, was a strange fellow, who said he normally was a guide on the (in) famous death road downhill circuit nearby to La Paz. We walked back through the witches market, stopping to look at the Llama foetuses (no pictures taken!), which we weren't bothered about but the Brazilian lady was. We then walked up to the street our hotel was on and got on a local bus which took us three blocks up to the local cemetery. The bus, which was like an American 50's school bus huffed and puffed up the hill and we arrived in twice the time it would have taken us to walk! As is customary in our visits now to capital cities in South America we had a tour around the cemetery before heading back down hill through another of the numerous markets in La Paz. The spaces were tight between the stalls and after a 10 minute journey we were glad to reappear back in the sunshine after walking though an eclectic mix of stalls selling absolutely everything; a combination of Tesco max, Poundstretcher, B&Q and Uncle Tom Cobblies! From here we walked the short distance to one of the city's three cable car stations, which is located where the old train station was. We were taking the red one, which was built just over a year ago, followed by the blue and yellow, 8 and 6 months ago respectively. Another 9 are planned right across the city on both sides and have largely been welcomed by citizens (taxi and bus drivers excluded!). The one way fare of 3B$ is excellent value and the views as we ascended to Alto city showing the city clustered up and in the valley, with the snowy mountains as backdrop were stunning. Just before we reached the top, Ed showed us where a car was wedged vertically in the cliff side, bonnet down as a result of a drunken taxi driver veering off the road a few years ago; Ed didn't know if the chap's body was still inside. We alighted the cable car and immediately felt the extra 450m of altitude. Alto is a separate city to La Paz (and is where the airport is based) and there is a fierce rivalry between the cities. One of these is the number and size of the markets they have and as this was Thursday we entered the huge imposing outdoor market. This is on twice a week (Sunday's is even bigger) and as we strolled around it, we were amazed at what you could buy and made the one we had been to earlier in La Paz seem limited! We had arrived late afternoon so most of the stall holders were starting to drink the proceeds of any goods they sold, so at times we did feel a little unsafe, especially as a couple of drunks wanted to make our acquaintance. One section of the market is the black market and all sorts of electrical goods being sold, with mobile phones prominent. Most if not all of the goods were stolen and the old adage in La Paz is if you get you phone/camera/bags etc stolen in La Paz, you can buy it back here! On the edge of the market was the vertical drop down to La Paz and this afforded us some great views of the mountains in the distance, all towering above the 6000m line. After an hour walking through the plethora of stalls we were a bit "market out" (Di said it was the longest she had ever been able to take Simon shopping!) we were glad that Ed suggest we jump aboard a local micro bus for the journey back to La Paz. We arrived back at the San Francisco Plaza, said our goodbyes and walked back to our hotel to pack for the next day. We went for a pizza that night, 5 minutes walk from where we were and enjoyed our last meal in La Paz. It maybe the most violent, dangerous city in the South America but there is definitely something about the place that you can't help but like.