La Paz

La Paz is not technically the capital of Bolivia, Sucre is the official capital of Bolivia. All of the muncipal buildings and parliment and the presidents office, however, are located in La Paz. We took an overnight bus from Potosi to La Paz and arrived at 7 am. Yippie! We checked into our the Wild Rover Hostel, which is a large but fun hostel. Its very clean, despite the fact that it is so large. Usually, the big hostels are a bit dingy. It also has an Irish bar, as its owners are Irish. It claims to be the highest elivated Irish pub in the world, however, it does not serve Guinness. Boo. I will just have to wait until I return. One of the items offered on the ´hungover backpacker breakfast menu` is a full Irish breakfast (eggs, sausage, beans, grilled tomato, & toast).


We have been in several different churches here in La Paz, including the Cathedral. The most interesting church we have been to so far is the San Fransisco Church. The museum right next to the church is filled with, surprisingly, I know, religious artwork. We got an excellent guided tour and saw artifacts that belonged to the Fransican Friars in the 16 & 1700s. We then were treated to a walk upon the roof and to the bell tower (but not allowed to ring the bell) to see the view of La Paz. It was great. There was a mass being held, so we had to come back in the afternoon to see the crypts. However, this was really neat as well. The crypt holds not only Fransican Friars, but famous revolutionaries and other important people from Bolivian history.

La Paz is a giant market. Everything is for sale on every street corner. We visited an infamous witches market, which was not that intersting. Lonely Planet makes it out to be really cool and mystical, but it just looked like a tourist trap to us.

We also stopped into the Coca Musuem. It is a musuem dedicated to the coca plant. It is chock full of informaiton about the coca plant. It does strongly explain that it feels cocaine, a derivitative of the coca plant, is exteremly bad for you and that it causes a severe additction. It also has lots of medicial information, history, etc.

Our second day in La Paz, Mike took the plunge and went on a bike ride down the worlds most dangerous road with Gravity Assisted Mountain Biking. 3 tourists died on this bike ride last year. I opted for a `safer` day shopping. I had fun in the spralling market streets of La Paz and wondered away from the tourist section to get some better deals. It began to rain in early afternoon and a took a nice dive down the steep streets and cut my knee and hand up. Boo. Then, managed to misplace my ATM card. I was able to cancel the card and request a new one without any unsual transactions. I am, however, without a bank card to complete this trip. My bank also just sent me an email telling me they cancelled my AmEx as a precaution, too (not that this is a huge deal, they hardly accept credit cards down here). I am completly reliant on Mike for the last week of our trip, we will just call him sugar daddy from now on..... Thankfully, he was okay with floating me some money for the last bit.