I’ve just about given up trying to post pictures from here. Third world internet is just not cutting it, so words will have to do.
My home base for the last week and a half has been La Paz, the federal capital of Bolivia. The city lies in a valley created by the Andes mountains. It is quite unique in that it is not surrounded by mountains so much as situated smack dab in the middle of the mountains with roads, canals, and buildings carving their way up to the Altiplano (high plain) where the neighbouring city/ghetto of El Alto (literally ‘the high one’)is.
The most notable and obvious aspect of Bolivia is that is extremely poor. Unfinished buildings, sketchy roads, and garbage litter the landscape. It is quite a noticeable contrast with life in Canada, but one I’ve seen before in Kenya. It really puts life into perspective, hard to complain about trivial matters when surrounded by people who can barely afford to stay alive.
A big part of existing here in La Paz is the altitude: 3600 meters above sea level. It ends up affecting pretty much every aspect of daily life. When you first arrive you notice that simple things like running up the stairs or long conversations leave you breathless with heart racing like you just ran a 4-minute mile. It took about 3 days to fully adjust, but I still run out of breath doing some menial tasks every now and then. The altitude also affects some less obvious things: digestion (with less oxygen, it takes a lot longer to digest food), heat (nothing stays warm here for long – a cup of coffee runs cold in about 5 minutes), fire (similar to the heat thing – a fire needs to be constantly stoked to keep going).
It is currently ’summer’ here which means a lot of rain and temperamental weather. Within an hour you can experience sun, hail, and rain. If you span the sky you can see all the microclimates occurring across the city. The downside to this, other than never knowing what to wear, is that the rain is quite intense and can hinder travel due to the roads being, as mentioned above, sketchy. There are underground rivers and man-made canals that bring the rain water from the mountain peaks. These are supposed to eliminate a lot of floods, but due to excessive rains and poor construction they often flood sometimes causing death.
There are a lot of cool cultural objects to be found in the city: native garb, art, sculpture, and silver (well, 90% silver) objects. The prices are dirt cheap but buyer beware you have to be picky about what you pick up as knock-offs are plenty. The food is also pretty good and spicy which suits me fine, but again, you have to be picky about where you eat. This is mainly due to the fact that the water here is contaminated and will make your bowels explode. So you need to eat at restaurants that wash their vegetables with clean water and even then it’s best to avoid all raw food.
Here for another week, then back to Argentina for a month. Will post later about my trip to Sucre and Potosi, two really cool spots in Bolivia.
