La Paz, Bolivia

This is a crazy city !!!!!

Imagine you take a bowl, cut it in 2, draw a highway between the 2 pieces where the river used to be. There you go, you have a 2 millions people city in Bolivia called La Paz. Forgot to mention that the bottom of the bowl is at 3600 and the top probably at 4K +.

The tourist bus arrived from the top, and the view was just stupendous. Every tourist in the bus (2 + me) did their "waoaaaaoww", and so do I. That way a great opening to La Paz.

The only thing that is flat in La Paz, is probably the bank account of the Bolivian.
ALL the rest is not straight, roads, buses, houses, beds, peoples, food, hotel, discussion, life, add-what-ever-you-want.....

I climbed (walked) around the city and find some amazing spots that kept on taking my alreday breath away. I spend quite sometime in the witches market, and the local mercado (half downtown). You can find EVERYTING you want on the street of La Paz, Bolivia. You have the classic bed and breakfast places at each corner, followed by orange juicers, and batteries testers, but you can find way much more in the street, here is the crema de caracoles to help you smothe your skin (big fat sea-snail alive in a plastic box) , here the street restaurant that give you your soup portion in a plastic bag, here is the cellphone renter, there is the hooded kid shoeshiner, and finally here is the dry baby Llamas foetus used for the Inka Coca Kintu ritual (to thank Pacha Mama).


This city just never sleeps. But I do sometime.
This city just never stops breathing. But I do sometime.
This city just never stops moving. But I do sometime.

Oh, guess what !
This is election time. I was stuck this afternoon in the middle a massive protestation in favort of the SI. I did not catch too much the question, but the valourous icone of the past were in front line. El Che was reborn, Fidel Castro and Hugo Chavez were just after and some new guys that I dont know the name were also on the go. The D-Dia is the first of July, but it start to be a bit complicated already to do something around, and the first few days of July will be of course, chaotic. We are in South Amercia afterall, country of the Grinta, Y todo es possible.


Travel detour.
I am really sad because France pass the 1/8. And now I have to go sooner to Brazil to see THE game there. I fly to Sao Paolo tomorrow, and try to move along the coast to catch my breath or hold it depending on the place and the time.

I am really glad to take off hopefully tomorrow with everything going on in the city. Right now there is a massive firework near where I am staying and this is a sort of a civil war, people running around screaming and yelling, seems to be Ok anyway. I saw some Euro and US observatores human right sort of, watching if the election is valid or not. Read the news after the 1st of July and you will know who won.

You never know what could happen, but I got my ticket this afternoon, and I do a 3 stop over kind of trip:
1) La Paz (Bol) -- Santa Cruz (Bol)
2) Santa Cruz (Bol) -- Asuncion (Par)
3) Asuncion (Par) -- Sao Paolo (Bra)

I will start early in the morning, and then will arrive late in the evening in SanPa.
It should be fun, just have to decide where I am going to stay for the 3 nights there.

Is it a sign?
Yesterday I had the blue French Coca-Cola bottle at my Israel place.
Tonight I had the yellow Brazilian one at the same place.

Copacabana, Bolivia :)

My first stop in Bolivia was at Copacabana, and it was freezing cold.

I know it seems very romantic, and I can see in some people eyes already some spakling lights and arousing cliché. But no this is not the same Copacabana, this is the one close to the Lake Titicaca, the one at 4000 meters high, where days are around 10ºC, and night below 0ºC.

But the most important thing is not how cold the place was, but how great the place was. It is a small town squized between 2 hills and a nice rounded sand beach on the lake. The sun starts usually to warm the maté de coca around 6 AM and go to bed at 6PM eveyday. I stayed there for a night and did at the same time a quick jump to "Isla del Sol". This is the place where all began for the Inka religion. I have to say, that if I did not checked the weather forcast before going there, I would have stayed at least a night or so; but the stormy icone that I saw on my screen make me feel dizzy and reluctant to fight again, against mother nature (Pacha Mama in Inka).

Anyway I walked around the island for a couple of hour, just enough to appreciate the light and some insular laid-back attitude. I stayed in Copacabana, in the nicest hotel for US$ 5 the night. The view in the morning was probably the best morning view I had in a long time, I could see the sun shining behind the hill and spotting the first few boats in the bay, while in the back the biggest storm ever was grounding and sounding like the end of the world. And all of this at 4000 meters on the lake Titicaca.


I lost my cap in the island (maybe I gave it back to the Inka as an gift), time for shopping then :)






Here is the picture of the Lake and Copa.
The beach and the scenery sounds idylic, but I have to say that it is 5 degres Celcius outside and no bikini is allowed unless you still wear your winter jacket

Hotel in Peru / Bolivia

Here is the list of all the hostel that I remember I have been


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Peru

• Lima

Loki Hotel (US$11 with breakfast)
Good dorm, and central place in Lima.
Friebndly staff as well, very helpfull, a good place to go
if you want to be in Miraflores.

• Pisco

Posada Hispana (US$ 10 with Breakfast)
Bolognesi 236
Good room, quiet and safe place, bit expensive

• Nazca

Hotel Estralla del Sur (20 Soles).
Small room for a small town and a small budget

• Arequipa

Posada del Cacique (20 soles)
Nice colour and close to the main city attraction, but not too close.
Luis is a good guy very helpfull and full of information.

• Cusco

Pirwa Hotel (40 soles) . Expensive but in Rua Suecia, 20 meters away from THE action.
Pirwa Backpaker (10 soles) . Much better place, close to San Glas, and quieter too.

• Agua Calientes

Hostal de Turistas Machupicchu Pueblo (25 Soles)
Barrio Loos Orquideas 23 cote 12
Humid,expensive and noisy. Don´t go,
but where else do you go in this strange pueblo?

• Puno

Hotel Pukara, Libertad 328 (US$25)
Expensive, BUT this is the only place I found in my budget that had a working heating system.
I would have paid much more in this place to not freeze my butt off.

• Mancora

Hospedaje El Amanecer, End of the road
(US$10) Expensive, BUT this is the only place I found in the busy weekend.
I would recommend rather the Hostel Mar Y Sol down the main road instead with swimming pool, and hot shower.

• Trujillo

Hotel Colonial, Jr. Indeència ·618 (S./ 50)
Nice hotel, close to the plaza de Armas. Nice room with TV and private bathroom.
Ask for a room in the back otherwise you will hear the bell in the morning and the horns from cab driver.

• Huaraz

Soon

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BOLIVIA

• Copacabana

Hotel Mirador (Bol$ 30)
This is the biggest and the most expensive of the area.
What a view, ask for the the last storey.

• La Paz

Hotel Majestic (Bol$ 85)
Calle Santa Cruz Esquina, Illampu 359
This is a 2 stars Hotel, with a breakfast included.
You should be able to have somethintg better somewhere else, but was not in a good shape to do anything.