The highlights were amazing delights... we saw and experienced so much variety in a very short time.
I promise a full report. If you abhor long trip reports full of detail, you might as well stop reading now. For others who delight in story and detail, read on. I promise to tell all about Carnaval, water balloons, spray foam, confetti, Condor sitings, natural beauty, man-made beauty, best places for bird watching, old train graveyards, witchdoctors, Andean shaman practices, AND to divulge the names of tremendous places to shop and eat including the best chocolate shop in Bolivia and the best Bolivian wines and beer... I will also tell you about where to find the largest natural mirror where you can see for miles and miles like you are inside a giant kaleidoscope and about other places of great beauty.
Sometimes getting to a special place can be an adventure in itself. Not all countries run travel schedules like clockwork.
Case in point, the night before our flight, American Airlines was forced to cancel the Miami - La Paz flight because the folks in Santa Cruz, who refuel the planes, were on strike and refused to refuel any of the planes at the La Paz airport. This of course became translated in the rumor mill as "a refueling problem".
In any case, we were late leaving Miami until 15 people offered to take $800 vouchers, hotel and meal vouchers from American. Ray and I were tempted, but not enough to give up our one day to acclimate in La Paz.
- Sharon
GASP. Landing in La Paz at 13,169 feet is a shocker to the system!
Our flight arrived about 7 AM and, after checking into our room Ray and I napped for about 5 hours. We then tried very carefully to move and breathe at this altitude. We tended to some basic business-- went to the bank for Bolivianos and then to some shops to purchase postcards. We purchased stamps at the hotel desk and spent some time writing post cards. Bolivian snail mail is terrific. A friend of mine said she received the post card from Bolivia before the one I had sent from Miami. Incredible!
Even through I had asked at the bank for small bills, we were given 10s, 20s and 200 bills. I asked for more small bills, but the cashier said that was all she could give me. We would have to come back in the morning for more small bills. BUMMER!
Perhaps if we had not spent the morning sleeping, resting, drinking plenty of water and (GASP) trying to breathe, we could have accomplished the bank errand in one trip.
Our new best friend, Rafael, who lives in OKC and hails from La Paz was visiting La Paz during the same time we were. He surprised us and showed up at our hotel about 4:30. Soon we were whisked away to the St. Michael's neighborhood, which is about a thousand feet lower in altitude at 10,825 feet. Our hotel was right at 11,800 according to Ray's altimeter. Boy, did a thousand feet make a difference!
We had afternoon tea at Alexander Pub, Zona Sur, San Miguel Ave, local 1336 Bloque B No 1. Tea consisted of various things to drink and a cheese empañada. This is a great place to hang out around 5 o clock. The place was filled with locals relaxing.
Rafael filled us in on some basic Bolivia information.
Breakfast is typically a mantequeña, a flat roll, with jam and butter accompanied with coffee. The coffee is typically a coffee concentrate, which you pour in a bit of the concentrate, perhaps 1/4 cup and then add hot milk. Very good, by the way!
Lunch is at 1 in the afternoon.
Siesta is between 1230 and 2.
Tea is 5 PM. This is typically a light snack.
Dinner is 8 or 9 PM.
He told us to obtain Bolivianos in 10s and 20s. Higher bills would be a problem.
Our conversation wandered to Butch Cassidy, Bolivian politics, missionary work, the strikers in Bolivia, oil and gas exploration in Bolivia and Bolivia's ties to Oklahoma's oil and gas industry. We enjoyed lively conversation and I was so grateful for such a personal introduction to La Paz.
We learned that Rafael's mission trip was scrapped. The physicians who were to come to La Paz with him were scheduled on the Sunday night flight that had been cancelled. They were told American Airlines could not get them to La Paz until Wednesday and each of the physicians had surgeries scheduled in OKC the following Monday and this would not allow enough time for a successful mission trip.
Rafael made special arrangements to fly from Miami to Lima and then on to La Paz. So, although he made it to La Paz, it was only by a side trip. I sure hope he got all the extra air miles! In fact, one of the folks on our tour became stuck in much the same fashion and ended up getting to La Paz via Caracus. I suppose you do what is required. I was quite thankful Ray and I did not have the complications which Rafael and others did.
We had a lovely dinner at our hotel. I had grillled trout with almonds from Beni (the jungle area of Bolivia) and Ray had a wonderful lamb stew. I have since learned that most meals in Bolivia are served with both potatoes and rice. This seemed a little weird during this first Bolivian meal; but, I accepted it graciously because my reading had informed me that a high carb diet is important when at high altitude.
No way could the hotel restaurant accept a $200 Boliviano bill. This is the equivalent of $25 US! (Thought we would give it a try.)
A bit about our hotel-- Hotel Rosario, Ave Illampu 704, La Paz
Service is terrific. Restuarant is good. Tremendous hospitality. Very clean. No elevator. (GASP - Our room was on the 3rd floor.) Location was good for easy access to the sprawling markets.... witches market, textile markets, black market. Ah... and free internet.
The best way I can describe the geography of La Paz is to have you imagine building a city in the Grand Canyon. It is either all uphill or downhill. Nothing is flat.
Tiwanaku Ruins - 2 Feb, 2005
From La Paz it is a 1 1/2 hour drive to Tiwanaku ruins. We hired a private driver and guide so we could keep this first day of activities at an easy pace.... or, better put, our pace.
We passed by Laja, the original city established by the Spanish. Laja means flat as it is on the antiplano. The city was founded Oct 20, 1548 and is 21 miles from La Paz. La Paz was founded a few days later on Oct 23, 1548. We drove between the Andes mountains on the high plateau. How high is high? Try 12,500 feet!
We passed fields of agricultural plantings of potatos, quinoa, soybeans and small adobe buildings. I was somewhat surprised to see potatoes flowering with purple flowers. (I am used to the white flowers that appear in my garden.) In Peru and Bolivia a large variety -- something like 200 or 300 varieties -- of potatoes grow.
We stopped for a photo op at Lloco Lloco, which means Heart Heart. This is a high pass where indigenous peoples came to make offerings to Pachamama (Mother Earth). We have learned that very high places in Bolivia are sacred because they are so much closer to the heavens. From this pass we could see Lake Titikaka in the distance and observed some wild soybeans growing with purple flowers.
At Cuerva Pecuro we passed a colorful blue green church.
The archaelogical site at Tiwanaku dates back 10,000 years before Christ. Three temples represent the Aymara worldview -- the underground or Pachamama, the constellations and ground level. Aymara people believed in the one God who created everything, Viracocha. It is believed that Viracocha and Pachamama were married. The main temple here has an impressive system of canals and in ancient times when it would rain, water would come through the spouts of this magnificent pyramid and form a giantwater fall.
We learned snake motifs represent fertility, pumas - power on the earth, and condors - power of the sky. The temple of the sun is an archaeo-astronomy site and the big event is winter solstice.
Materials used were red sandstone from Lake Titikaka, granite and basalt. The decorations, carvings and pottery examples we saw at the ruins and in the two museums at Tiwanaku reminded me of many different civilizations -- Olmec, Maya and Inca. Sculpted heads (170 of them) had Asian, Amazonian, Mongol and Negroid characteristics. What a convergence of cultures! Animals were also represented.
The tour portion of our trip started the afternoon of Thursday, Feb 3.
Mauricio Suarez was our guide in La Paz and Oruro. He is by far the best local guide I have ever had the pleasure to use. He spoke clear English and the depth of his knowledge on such a broad range of topics was superb. Mauricio works for MAGRI-Turismo and truly enjoys being a guide. He and his wife are both trained architects; so, he balances architectural work with tourism.
Contact info for MAGRI-Turismo: Phone in La Paz: 591-2-244-2727 FAX in La Paz: 591-2-244-3060 e-mail: info@magri-amexpress.com.bo website: www.magri-amexpress.com.bo
I will also direct you to Rutahsa Adventures who put the tour portion of our trip together and who made hotel, guide and transportation arrangements with agents in Bolivia & Peru for the independent portion of our adventure. Not that we do tours all the time; but, this was our third trip with Ric Finch, who together with his wife Janie, is the genius behind Rutahsa Adventures. His trip planning is absolutely the best and you get to some amazing off-the-beaten path places with his tours. Group size is limited to 16. If interested, check out
and tell them Ray and Sharon Mc from Oklahoma referred you via worldisround. We get nothing for the referral; but I know Ric & Janie like to keep track of where their clients first hear about Rutahsa.)
A Favorite Textile Shop Prior to the tour Ray and I found this wonderful textile store: Artesania Visa, next to Hostal Cactus, Melchor Jemenez 818. Telephone: 246-2927. Good-hearted and knowledgeable people staff the family-run shop. They are quite friendly and will discuss symbolism of the textile designs and uses of the textiles and objects at length with you. Patricia speaks just a little English; her sister, Felicidad speaks English quite well. I received most of my textile information from Patricia in Spanish so she might also be the more knowledgeable one. Felicidad is a university student and showed up later in our visit to their store.
Don't be put off by the machine woven textiles outside. There are some very interesting textiles and hats inside.
I traded email addresses with Felicidad and our plan is for her to write to me in English and for me to write her in Spanish. I certainly need to send her photos of Ray and I with her sister, Patricia, which we posed for in their shop. I am sure Patricia will like to have this remembrance!
Ray and I spent such a delightful time in their shop.
Black Market & Witches Market The market area around our hotel was about 50 blocks of markets. Mauricio told us sixty percent of the people in La Paz make their living selling, so there is a lot of competition. The average salary per capita per month is about $56 US. People set up their booths and sell everything imaginable in the Black Market and Witches Market. They avoid taxation, hence the label: black market. In the Witches Market there are all sorts of 'unusual' items: llama fetuses, various shaped candies, vino tinto, herbs, potions and confetti.
Carnaval is a time to bless things. So, since everything is to be blessed, there was a lot of shopping going on in the markets of La Paz as the days lead up to carnaval.
Blessings are done with paper ribbon and confetti so the volume of confetti being sold was outstanding! 50-gallon sized vats of various colors of confetti were all over Calle Illampu, where our hotel was located. Also readily available were carnaval costumes, water balloons, water guns, super-soakers and firecrackers. The special carnaval vendors lined both sides of Calle Illampu and contributed to confusing traffic patterns.
A group visit to a Kallawaya (Andean Witch Doctor) Mauricio arranged for us to meet with Fabian Llaves, a kallawaya. We were lead through the unusual merchandise of the witches market to a small room where Fabian read his coca leaves. The walls of this room were decorated with egg-crate after egg-crate that had been nailed down for so long that the nails had formed rust marks. After Fabian tossed the coca leaves on a hand-woven textile; he read them and offered his suggestions for a proper offering to pachamama. Fabian told us one person in our group was not well and we would need to be careful for this person. (He did not know that one of the members in our group had slipped on a bar of soap in a Miami hotel and was wearing a brace. This person had been delayed and had not yet joined the group.) After finding this out, Fabian followed up by saying that there was one person and maybe two that we would need to be careful for. We were also told our trip coordinator, Ric Finch, would be fine. Coca leaves that fall underneath-side-up, are evidently bad omens.
Our kallawaya suggested we buy all the things for a proper offering and make an offering to pachamamma. Mauricio told him we were going to Sajama and Fabian said we should take our offering to Sajama, a very high mountain near the Bolivia/Chile border and burn it there. Ric asked how much for the offering, and was told 200 Bolivianos. Rutahsa Adventures paid for the offering, gave it to the kallawaya and asked him to choose the proper items for us.
Mauricio told us Fabian comes from the province with the very best witch doctors: Bautista Saavedra. Phone number: 233-3382 Mobile: 772-34895. (yes, 8 digits for Bolivian cell phones and he speaks Spanish, no English.)
La Paz, cont'd St. Peter's Cathedral, Plaza Murrillo, Gold Museum and More The city center of La Paz is beautiful. Fine plantings, pleasant green areas, lovely flowering blooms, fabulous architecture AND a lower altitude. oh, so important for more oxygen!
We stopped at St. Peter's Cathedral, Plaza Murrillo, the Gold Museum, Casa Murillo, and strolled along Calle Jaén.
La Paz, cont'd Huari Peña That evening our kallawaya met us at Huari Peña, Calle Sagarnaga 339 at 7:30 PM. Here he described all the items of the offering. Star-shaped candies for reverence to the constellations, llamas for balance & unity, silver streamers for riches, a silver couple inside a heart-shaped ornament to represent the group, lots of candies for sweetness, health and a safe trip. The mesa was topped off with a llama fetus that had been wrapped up a bit in rainbow of colored gauzy ribbon. We were each given a mixed drink of passion fruit juice and singani that we poured around the offering (mesa) at the four corners in a counter clockwise motion. (This motion follows the spindles of the Ancient Andean Cross, which is a mirror image of Hitler's swastika.) Fabian said several prayers. Then we all toasted, "Salud! Suerte!" and proceeded to our tables for dinner, delightful Andean music and festive dance. One of the bands played panpipes that were 4 to 5 feet long and produced a low base sound. What a treat to hear this instrument! As the evening wore on the bands became better and better. Each band took its turn selling CDs after their performance. We purchased two CDs as souvenirs for 80 Bolivianos each and they are fantastic!
The show was quite colorful and I took loads of photos and mpgs. Then, if that wasn't enough one of the young men grabbed my hand to join him in dancing on the stage. Well, why not? I agreed. Oops. I had momentarily forgot about the GASPING at this altitude! It was fun nonetheless. We danced all over the stage as a pair and then formed a large circle. Around and around we went. Someone broke the circle and started doing a snaking dance all around the tables. WHEW! OMIGOSH I became so winded! Such is the price of fun and dancing at a peña with a fine Andean dancer. I asked Ray to check his altimeter when I arrived back at our table: 11, 915 feet. I was so grateful to have ordered another bottle of water prior to being spun around like that. I told myself: concentrate - blow out through your mouth, breathe in through your nose. Pursed lipped breathing - WHEW
The show ended at 10:30 PM and after paying our bill, we walked uphill the two blocks to our hotel. The vendors were still putting up their wares. Mauricio had told us they begin setting up at 5 AM. Although we also saw some vendors setting up at 9 AM; it probably depends on whether the particular vendor is a morning person or an evening person.
La Paz, cont'd Alasitas Market - The Party of Miniatures Alasitas is a two-week long party for the god of fortune, ekeko. Here you can buy everything imaginable in miniature. You have an ekeko idol and attach all these things to your ekeko: I suppose its a bit like creating a visual Christmas list. With a chubby, mustached ekeko that carries everything you want: money, passports, luggage, babies, stoves, houses, cars, stores, pots and pans, food, diplomas, clothing. Anything you can buy in the real world, you can find in miniature at the Alasitas Market. You can also find some very fine snacks.
La Paz - Valley of the Moon After a 45-minute bus ride from our hotel, we reached The Valley of the Moon. The site is similar to Utah's Bryce Canyon and contains the same eroded hoodoos. A couple of men played native music (drum, flute and panpipes) and sold tourist handicrafts. The music provided a nice accompaniment to our 45-minute hike. Along the way we spotted a giant hummingbird: imagine a bird about the size of a robin moving about like hummingbirds do! Seeing such a bird certainly left me in a state of puzzlement! Thanks to Linda, who was part of our group and had a South American birding book!
Our trip leader, Ric Finch, who is a retired geology professor, explained a bit about Bolivia's geology:
The South American plate moves westward over the Nazca plate (part of the Pacific Ocean). An important distinction is that the South American plate is continental and the Nazca plate is oceanic. One of the facts about oceanic plates is that in a collision with a continental plate, oceanic plates will lose, folding down and sinking below the continental plate, because they are thinner and heavier than continental plates. So, as the South American plate moves west and converges with the Nazca plate its force runs over the oceanic plate, forcing it down into the earth in a process known as subduction. This process causes the mass to become hotter: think magma and volcanoes. The margin of the over-riding continental plate is also damaged in the collision, folded and uplifted into mountains; and, molten material rises from the subducted plate, through the deformed edge of the continental plate, to add volcanoes to the folded mountain belt.
The Andes mountains consist of two mountain ranges. The western range is more volcanic and the eastern range is mostly a series of folded mountains. These are parallel ranges and they are not that far apart. In Bolivia the ranges are quite pronounced as two walls of mountains with sediment build-up in between which derived from the fight between uplift and erosion. The land in between these two ranges is the altiplano, which is relatively flat and high. Very few streams cut through the altiplano, which help to maintain it's flat shape. In any case, all this wonderful science of plate tectonics and erosion creates some amazing landforms and natural beauty!
The city of La Paz is in a canyon of eroded material. A stream goes through and has cut into the mountain creating a large canyon. I became curious about how one builds such a large city in this setting: a place with geography similar to the Grand Canyon. I asked our guide, Mauricio, a trained architect about building practices in La Paz. He said that 65% of the land is very unstable. Engineers use a six-foot tall tripod and drop a weighted ball from the top of it. Then, by measuring the amount of land that has been disrupted, an engineer can design a way to stabilize a building on that site. As you can imagine, architects and structural engineers work together and building a stable, well-made dwelling space is quite expensive. Many people cannot afford this input or the construction methods, so if you look around the less affluent areas of La Paz you will find a fair amount of buildings which have shifted and have all sorts of structural problems.
La Paz - Tiwanaku Museum We saw an amazing collection of artifacts at the Tiwanaku Museum in La Paz. (Calle Tiwanaku 93) Displays are well lit and have all their signage in Spanish. This museum is definitely worth a stop if you are interested in archaeology, anthropology or ceramics.
A fifteen or twenty minute video (in English) explained current archaeological discoveries and the significance of the Tiwanaku site. The presentation is about discoveries at Tiwanaku and a nice presentation of how two archaeologists, Alan Kolata and Oswaldo Rivera, assisted present-day people living near Tiwanaku in rediscovering agricultural 'secrets' of the ancient Tiwanaku and passed on their findings to modern-day peoples who were rewarded with bumper crops. Prior to our trip I had read a Feb 1991 Smithsonian article, " The Secrets of Ancient Tiwanaku are Benefiting Today's Bolivia" and was delighted to watch a video where these archaeologists explain and show how their discovery of pre-Inca agricultural techniques was helping modern-day people.
Another interesting part of the video explains how the raised temple at Tiwanaku, Akapana, served as a water-mountain image with tunnels to control the flow of water under the temple. In this fashion, a cult of water was celebrated in the stone temple itself: water is life.
The exterior architecture of the museum reflects important Tiwanaku features and reflects a French architectural design. The style has been called neo-Tiwanaku.
La Paz - San Pedro Prison We passed by the prison on the way to the Valley of the Moon. If you are interested in a description of Bolivian prison life read the book "Marching Powder" which is about the time Thomas McFadden spent in the San Pedro prison. Prisoners have to pay their way while in prison and McFadden earned his keep by offering tours through the prison as a tour guide.
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Come visit with me at http://travelerstogo.com/ by posting your follow-up questions in the Carribean, Mexico, Central & South American forum. My alias is Sharon Mc1, and I am the destination moderator for that forum -- I love talking about travel!
I recently wrote a practical travel guide for the Peruvian and Bolivian high Andes. I had a great deal of fun writing it, and particularly enjoyed writing the restaurant reviews. Here is the link:
http://p104.ezboard.com/feuropetogofrm21.showMessage?topicID=40.topic
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Articles in this series include:
Miami, Jupiter, & the Everglades (Florida) http://www.worldisround.com/articles/141804/index.html
La Paz, Tiwanaku & Valley of the Moon (Bolivia) http://www.worldisround.com/articles/141500/index.html
Oruro Carnival (Bolivia) http://www.worldisround.com/articles/141977/index.html
Sajama National Park (Bolivia) http://www.worldisround.com/articles/143197/index.html
Salar de Uyuni (Bolivia) http://worldisround.com/articles/143714/index.html
Train Graveyard - Uyuni (Bolivia) http://www.worldisround.com/articles/141742/index.html
Train Graveyard - Pulacayo (Bolivia) http://www.worldisround.com/articles/141647/index.html
Along the Road from Uyuni to Potosí (Bolivia) http://worldisround.com/articles/143868/index.html
Potosí (Bolivia) http://worldisround.com/articles/145509/index.html
Sucre (Bolivia) http://worldisround.com/articles/182068/index.html
Tarabuco (Bolivia) http://worldisround.com/articles/182063/index.html
Jatun Yampara (Bolivia) http://www.worldisround.com/articles/169005/index.html
Lake Titikaka (Bolivia) http://www.worldisround.com/articles/261030/index.html
Copacabana (Bolivia) http://www.worldisround.com/articles/261498/index.html
Along the Road - Copacabana (Bolivia) to Puno (Peru) http://www.worldisround.com/articles/261584/index.html
Cusco, Sacsayhuaman & Lima (Peru) http://www.worldisround.com/articles/270254/index.html
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