La Paz

The overnight bus from Sucre was freezing cold, heading up to altitudes well over 4000 m. We arrived in La Paz early morning, pretty well chilled to the bone, but we were stoked to find a heater in our hostel room. The hostel also had cable TV so I was able to watch the Springboks beat the Pumas while we warmed up. The view from the bathroom window was also awesome:

 

We spent our first afternoon wandering the tourist offices booking in a couple of activities for the coming days, and walking around the witches market. The witches sell all sorts of potions and items for sacrifice, including the baby llamas which they have hung along the shop fronts.

 

Not much else to report but Cat bought a new bag made from alpaca wool which is pretty neat.

On our first night it was the two year birthday celebration for our hostel, so they put on a roast pork dinner and drinks. After starting pretty quietly (around 2 hours late, i.e. Bolivian time), we ended up having a highly entertaining food, beer, wine and Singani filled evening. The hostel owner had invited all of his family along as well as all of the hostel guests so we had some great laughs in Spanglish. Note also that the football stayed on the TV all night.

After a bit of a slow start we grabbed some of our favourite salteñas from the local salteñaria, ran a few errands and then it was time to head to some Lucha Libre and Cholita Wrestling. This takes place every Sunday evening in El Alto (the plateau above La Paz), and has to be one of the most hilarious and entertaining things that we have come across. The evening opened with some male wrestling (Lucha Libra) before the main event of Cholitas, in their traditional get-up, hyping up the crowd and taking each other on in one-on-one and tag-team events. In true WWF/WCW/WWE style they would crack out some body slams, holds and throws, use bits of wood as weapons, and even take on the referees. There was even a sleazy ringside commentator. The crowd (2/3 Bolivian, 1/3 tourists) got right into it and many packs of popcorn and bottles of drink made it into the ring. The lighting was pretty South American, so the photos don't quite do the show justice.

Tag team Lucha Libre:

Making an appearance:

Preparing to slam:

Big throw:

This one loved my beard:

We headed to the Death Road (aka World's Most Dangerous Road, aka Yungas Road) which goes from La Paz down to Coroico, for a spot of mountain biking. The road cuts into steep cliffs and is exceptionally narrow, with around 200-300 people killed per year before the new road was opened. The road descends over 3000 m across around 60 km, so it is ideal for downhill mountain biking. We had seen this road in our transport engineering lectures at university, so it was pretty exciting to be able to ride down it.

All kitted out (although I don't think a full face helmet would do much after a few hundred metre free fall):

The ride starts out on the sealed dual carriageway, surrounded by snow. This was a pretty spectacular start to our ride and it was awesome to gain as much speed as possible as the road wound its way downwards.

We quickly reached the fork between the old and new roads, which is where the narrow, unsealed road begins. Unfortunately the clouds closed in a bit so visibility wasn't great, but we could see enough to keep a decent speed up and still avoid toppling over the edge.

Cat getting some speed up before the cliffs:

 

 

The clouds also meant that the classic photos didn't come out as well as we would have liked, but it didn't affect the trip.

 

Much deserved drink below the clouds:

After seeing two people come a cropper (into the bank, not off it), we made it to the bottom. The hot, humid rainforest environment was a massive change from the Altiplano, so we were able to make the most of a swimming pool and a buffet lunch before heading back up to La Paz via the new road.

We took a free walking tour of the city, starting out outside the San Pedro prison. I had read about the prison in the book 'Marching Powder' and it has an insane set up, with a full prison economy. The guards are only active outside of the prison, and the prisoners themselves run the show. Inmates have to rent or buy their cells, so they need jobs to make money (shop keeper, cleaner, coke manufacturer, politician etc), and many of the inmates have their families live inside with them. For a few years it was a popular tourist attraction to bribe the guards and prisoners and take a tour of the prison, but the government put a stop to it to save face.

We took in some more of the city's markets, tasted some papas rellenos (stuffed and deep fried potatoes) and plenty of good juices, and visited the main plazas, learning a lot about Bolivia's somewhat turbulent political history and present day situation.

Cat in plaza, complete with new bag:

 



There are bullet holes everywhere since the early 2000s:

 

The next two days we split paths: I went to spend a couple of days climbing Huayna Potosi, and Cat spent some more time around the city and went horse riding at Muela del Diablo.

I wasn't sure if I was being brave or stupid in attempting Huayna Potosi in two days, as the more common route for amateur climbers like me is to take three days, spending the first day acclimatising to the altitude and learning some mountain climbing techniques. The woman at the guide agency reckoned I could handle the two day climb (maybe lost in translation?), so that is what I signed up for.

The weather at the base camp was pretty atrocious, surrounded by clouds with a bit of snowfall:

 

The first day we only climbed for a couple of hours from the base camp up to the high camp, at 5,130 m. I found it pretty hard work as we carried our large backpacks (I had over packed) and walked at a high pace. The most impressive part of the first day were the women who climbed with us in full traditional Cholita dress and flat/sports shoes. The women were the cooks who catered our meals at the high camp.

Our party of six (two guides, three climbers and a cook) were the last to arrive at the high camp; not because we were slow, but because we had spent around an hour and a half driving around El Alto trying to find the address of our cook. When we got there the weather was still pretty bad but I managed to catch a couple of breaks in the cloud to snap some photos.

A glimpse of the sky at sunset:

 

We headed to bed around 8:00pm, as we were due to wake up at midnight to start climbing. Over night I had a pretty bad headache, maybe due to the cold I had or maybe due to the altitude, and as such I probably got around 20 minutes of sleep by the time we were up having breakfast at midnight.

It was the first time I had worn crampons and at 1.30am I found myself roped to my guide "Papa" Francisco making our way up the side of the mountain. The other two in our party, Michael and Franz from Germany, were roped to the other guide. Thankfully the weather had cleared due to the strong winds so we had reasonably good visibility with our headlamps. I was pretty glad of this as we climbed some pretty steep ridges and had to jump over a couple of crevasses. It was hard work so I was glad to have the company of Papa Francisco, and Michael, who swapped onto our rope halfway up. The climb took around five hours, with the sun rising just before we started our final (steep) ascent, revealing our first glimpse of the peak and the surrounding cordillera. The view from the top towards Lake Titicaca:

And looking north:

At the summit, 6,088 metres above sea level:

 

We took the descent as quickly as possible, stopping only for a couple of photos, taking around two hours to get back to the high camp. A bowl of soup here before descending down to the base camp. I struggled a lot on the last 500 m of descent, as I was so exhausted, but I was hugely satisfied and relieved when we reached the camp. Bloody hard, but I would do it again.

The view looking back at the mountain:

 

Cat went riding up to Muela del Diablo, stopping for lunch and spectacular views over La Paz and the surrounding towns.

The view from the horse, Delmarta:

Riding companions:

Muela del Diablo:

 

She tells me she had a very badly behaved horse, which kept biting the others, but it looks to me like they got on OK:

A spot of Burger King for dinner, an early night, and then off to Copacabana first thing in the morning.

We had come to La Paz with mixed expectations after hearing bad things from loads of other travellers, but we had an awesome time and I'd love to come back.