Saturday 13 July 2002
Travel mornings tend to start in hectic mood and this was no exception. We were going to La Paz today, but when we bought the ticket two days ago, the travel agency wrote the wrong date onto it: 11 July! This we discovered yesterday evening, thus we were quite nervous if the bus would pick us up or simple didn’t know about us.
We decided that Ane would go to bureau to get a new ticket, while I should wait at the hotel in case the bus would arrive. If that would happen I could simply ask the bus driver to pickup Ane on the way.
Suddenly Ane came running out of breath. We got some seats, but there would not be any pickup. We had to go to the bus ourselves, which meant that we were in a hurry. We made it and said farewell to Peru.
The bus drive was fantastic. Driving along the Titicaca Lake up against the Andes in bright sunshine was a breathtaking view. We quickly reached the Bolivian border and had to interrupt “The Green Mile” that was running on the bus video. Anyway, we had seen it before, so no harm.
The bus stopped at the border and we had to walk over ourselves and enter the customs to get our passport stamped. That part went very well as extra manpower was on that day, nice service. The border area was a really exciting junction were people walked from Bolivia to Peru and vice versa.
Traders here live of the tourists crossing the border and a lot of shoe polishers were absolutely sure, that they’re able to make my Nubuck boots shine. Half an hour later the bus continued to the beach town Copacabana, which also exists in a Bolivian version.
This Copacabana was a beautiful small town and was used as junction for change of busses halfway to La Paz. We had 1.5 hour break to eat lunch and enjoy the bay. The town was well-kept and used to host tourists. We had lunch in one of the many cozy restaurants in lovely sunshine and had to admit that the sun actually was able to bring warm weather into the mountains.
A lot of shoe-polishing kids asked us where we were from. When they learned that we came from Denmark, they asked if we got some Danish coins. It turned out that the kids collected international money and traded with each other – I guess this was the world oldest kind of “Poke-mon” cards? We felt so sorry not bringing some Danish coins as they have a hole in the middle, which is quite rare.
We continued by bus to a small ferry berth at a place where the Titicaca Lake leads into a narrow bay. Here the bus drove onto a barge and was sailed over using only an outboard motor.
Meanwhile the passengers had to visit a small ticket-office window and buy our ticket to get to the other side of the bay in a small motorboat. After arriving we saw the bus slowly approaching on the barge. What a funny experience.
Later, after a brief turn we looked to our right, La Paz appeared unexpectedly in the valley beneath us. The bus paused for 5 minutes to give us the opportunity to take photos. Wauv! What a fantastic view. This valley was surrounded by huge showy mountains and in the middle this capital 3.6 km above sea level. We could easily have spent hours up here, but it turned out that we still had several miles to go before we would reach La Paz center.
The city of La Paz has 750,000 citizens + 650,000 in a newer district on the other side of the valley. This should be compare to the fact that Bolivia has some 8,000,000 inhabitants in total. Only 13% of Bolivia is covered by mountains why it’s a bit weird that the capital is located here; thus being here leaves no doubt why – the surroundings couldn’t be more beautiful.
The suburbs here were as in Peru: dirty, un-asphalted roads and very poor. The center of La Paz looks more wealthy and well-kept than cities in Peru. The old videogames like Pac-Man and Donkey Kong that still were in use in Lima, was outdated by newer games here.
The traffic was a chaotic mess. Today the Saturday Market was on which meant that several streets were blocked and more streets were sealed off by the police because of La Paz’s birthday the following Monday. We looked forward to that event. Later that evening we found the best dining place on our entire holiday: “La Caliente” – an old, cozy place with the best food and quite cheap. We paid EUR 8 for both of us including beers. Bolivia was a cheap place to live. The hotel was EUR 13 with private bathroom. We hadn’t stayed that cheap since Lima. Later we experience that price and quality also follows in the part of the world.
The bus company told us that this city was considered safe. No knives in your head, any robberies or pirate-taxis. The only problem related to tourists was people who pretended to be police officers. They would ask for documentation and take you outside the city and rob you off. The guide on the bus told us to stay calm and ask the “police” to contact our hotel if they wanted anything. Only the tourist police were entitled to ask for papers from tourists, which were reassuring information. We had no incidents at all; hence La Paz can be fully recommended.