+ The bye bye to Centralamerica wasn´t easy at all. We knew that the daily plan of beaches, bike rides and sunbathing, being in shorts and flip flops was over. We were panicking because we would lose our super tan and would pass from nights of fan and cold showers to nights of blankets and sitting by the radiator... (At that time we didn't know that there were no radiators in Bolivia.) We were not even sure why the heck we had made the decision to leave those nice countries with permanent lovely weather.
+ We arrived in the airport of la Paz (El Alto) at 0.00 in the night. It was around 0ºC and we were at 4100m above the sea level....What the hell !!! Of course we catched a taxi and went directly to the hostel we had previously booked. Our first impression was that there was a lot of activity in the street (food stalls, traffic, homeless wandering around). We need to remember that in Costa Rica, after 21.00 it was almost impossible to have dinner so it was really a shock. In a way, we felt a bit like being back in Southeast-Asia.
+ Our first night was a night of many blankets... and the first symptons of altitude sickness: imsomnia and headacke. The first insomnia night of many more to come....
+ In the morning everything looked different. Plenty of sunlight and some nice 20ºC in the sun. The city of La Paz is actually in a valley so it is very easy to have a good overview of it. The most impresive is that the city expands from the center to the top of the valley in both sides, so wherever you stand, you can see its unique architecture. The upper part of the valley (4100m) is called El Alto and it is the poorest area, also where the airport is located. The lowest part is as low as 3300m and it is the rich area. Here the temperature is milder. The city center, where we spent most of the time is at around 3600m.
+ The city center is really beautiful. Full of colors and with shops selling millions of handcrafts. Most of the people are of indigenous origins and continue to dress in their traditional clothes.The most interesting is the hat the women wear. It is too small for their head!! And it has a lot of meaning: if the hat is streight, it means the woman is married, if it is slightly bend to the side, she is still single... Wow!! The history of this hat that looks like those which were worn in England in the 19th century is even more funny: an English gentleman who came to La Paz many decades ago tried to sell these articles for men from England. As men didn't buy them, he said that it was very fashionable in Europe for women and that the rich ladies from the royal families wore them with prestige. The women from La Paz bought the story and the hats. Since then, they wear them with lot of pride.
+ People sell food everywhere in the streets: empanadas, meet, rice, bread, burgers, pop-corn, all sort of things made from corn and some undefined things... The food is extremely cheap and contrary to our expectations: very jummy!! A Almuerzo (set lunch of soup, main dish with meat, potatoes, salad and a lot of rice, plus desert and drink) cost around 2€ or less: unbeatable!! A jummy empanada cost 10-20 Cents. Awesome for the daily budget.
+ The city is hard to visit because there are no flat streets and at 3600m above the sea level you feel constantly tired and is hard to breath. We felt like we were only going uphill . The best remedy to the altitude sickness is to drink a lot of Mate de Coca (coca tea), lot of water and to chew coca leafs. It is not very pleasant because the leafs taste bad but somehow they help. We drank, more or less, a coca tea per hour :)
+ Everything in Bolivia is super cheap. And there are markets everywhere for anything you need. And they open day and night. It is really awesome. They even sell dried llama embryo or dried llama baby! Kinga was under shock, but as locals explained to us, it comes from an old tradition and they were for sacrifies to the Pacha Mama...
+ We went shopping clothes because we weren´t really ready for the cold. Well, let's say Kinga went shopping and Dani looked :)
+ Bolivians and Dani are in average 1m high difference, so guess, it wasn´t that easy to find trousers for him. The other very funny thing in Bolivia is how things are constructed. You think you are giant because everything is hanging really really low. How in earth you can try the trousers in such a cabin!!!??
+ Our most valuable acquisition was a hair-dryer for 7€. We new that we were coming to a cold country in the mountains but what we didn´t know was that none of the hostels used heating system. The hair-dryer was our best friend in those cold nights were the bed feels like a huge ice cube!!
+ Near la Paz, there is a place called Valle de la Luna (Moon Valley). We went for a short visit and got really impressed. Weird and extraordinary rock formations to wander around. At that time we found this small park unique (we didn´t know what was to come in Bolivia in terms of incredible landscapes...).
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