The 3-day tour dropped us off in Uyuni, Bolivia, a flat, windswept town that has little going for it besides the tourism from multiday tours like mine. Having bought a train ticket north towards La Paz, for 1:20pm in the morning, I searched for a good bite to eat, and found an excellent one, thanks to my Lonely Planet guidebook. Minuteman Pizza is 2 blocks southwest of the train station and is run by a guy from Massachusetts who settled down with a Bolivian woman in Uyuni. The pizza there was incredible! After more than two months of some of the weirdest and quirkiest pizzas you could ever find, I was in heaven eating a genuine New York style pizza.
After stuffing myself, I went to the train station to wait, and encountered a girl from another tour that I had met a while back. Marisa was going on the same train, but in a different car, so we agreed to meet up and travel together to La Paz.
On the train I ended up sitting next to a very intelligent and ambitious Bolivian girl named Soledad. Just finishing college, she was focusing her work on tourism, and saw it as a means for Bolivia to increase in wealth, win friends abroad, and preserve their unique cultures. We had a very long and interesting conversation in English, until the other passengers needed to fall asleep.
After changing from train to bus in a rough mining town called Oruro, our bus mad a spectacular descent into La Paz. First we drove through La Paz's rapidly growing suburb and slum, El Alto, which has a dizzying altitude of 4100 meters. From there the road made a wide, snaking turn to descend more than 1200 feet, into the narrow valley that houses La Paz's 2 million residents. The view was breathtaking, as the city has only one major thoroughfare, running north to south along the base of the valley. The rest of the city spreads upwards on both sides of the valley, until one side finally reaches El Alto. Again, only pictures can hope to describe it.
In La Paz, Marisa (from London) and I stayed at a wonderful guesthouse just north of the center of the city, on Av. Montez, called Arthy's. It was the perfect place to rest up after the arduous 3-day journey, followed by an overnight train ride. Arthy's was clean comfortable, and run by a wonderful man by the name of Ruben and his family. The hospitality they showed me, and their eagerness to go the extra mile when I needed it will never be forgotten.
After a few days of La Paz's crowded streets and bustling markets, Marisa and I were more than ready for the tranquility offered by the mystical Lake Titicaca, on the border with Peru.
The Cordillera Real mountain range on the approach to La Paz. 
Busy and chaotic El Alto, a suburb of La Paz and South America's fastest growing city. 
The view of La Paz while descending from the plateau along one side of the narrow valley. 
Another view of La Paz during the descent, with a magnificent peak covered by clouds in the background. 
Basilica San Francisco, a beautiful church on a downtown plaza. 
A statue of one of Bolivia's most famous artists, opposite the basilica on the same plaza.
From the same position, downtown La Paz, looking north. 
Plaza Murillo in downtown La Paz, which houses Bolivia's legislative and executive branches of government. (The judicial branch is seated in Sucre.) 
A view of a La Paz street that is steep enough to be in San Francisco.
A quaint colonial neighborhood looking down one side of the valley and onto the other.
No comments:
Post a Comment