Our trip to La Paz was bittersweet. Julia has been hoping to meeting with a number of Youth Ambassador friends during this trip. However in this case, one of her closest YA friends, Alvaro from Bolivia, was killed in a freak and tragic accident when a tree fell on his taxi while on his way to a Bible study. He was only 21 – only a few years after the Youth Ambassador program. So this stop was to visit Alvaro’s grave and meet his family, who Julia has been in contact with over the years. We got to meet both of Alvaro’s sisters and our time with them was wonderful. They were gracious hosts showing us around La Paz, taking us to amazing restaurants, and making us feel welcome.
A tough, but good visit.
One of our first outings was to a handicraft market in downtown La Paz. As you can see, lots of bright colours and a fun place to do a bit of shopping.
We had one funny cultural story on our way there. We took the Teleferico (more on that later) to get downtown. The stop was a few blocks away from the market so we had to walk a few blocks to get there. As we exited the Teleferico station, we heard something that sounded like ice cream truck music and Annika, looking around, asked me where was coming from. I told her I thought it was coming from the garbage truck on the street, which it turns out it was. Our curiosity as to why it was playing music was quickly answered as it was travelling the same direction as we were. As it traveled down the street, all the shop owners would hear it coming and run out to the street with their garbage bags and it would stop whenever someone came out. I guess that is one way of doing it, especially when you are on a busy downtown road and having all the garbage sitting on the street wouldn’t really work that well. Annika dubbed it the “happy garbage truck” though, with it’s happy tune!
Valle De Las Animas
One of Alvaro’s sister and her husband drove us to the outskirts of La Paz to a restaurant at an eco lodge with amazing views overlooking Valle De Las Animas (Valley of the Souls). Great company, good food, and beautiful scenery made for a memorable day, even if it did take us a little while to find the place.
Some of the eco lodge buildings the girls dubbed “Hobbit Holes”, especially when I stood in the doorway. We got to eat dinner in a sun room overlooking Valley of the Souls.
So much of the area in and around La Paz reminded me of southern Utah area with its hoodoos and mountains.
As we drove back into La Paz, one of the neighbourhoods was having a celebration. We got to see a lot of local dress, dancing, and even some bands playing. It was one big long parade and party, celebrating their neighbourhood. Pretty fun to see and hear.
Valle de la Luna
I guess when Neil Armstrong visited this area, he called this place Moon Valley and the name stuck. Super unique hoodoos which almost looked like giant sand drip castles. Some of the drops in between the spires you couldn’t see the bottom of. Both of Alvaro’s sisters joined us for the hike through the valley.
Teleférico
So what does a city do for mass transit when the city is surrounded by and built into mountains and cliffs and a subway just doesn’t work? You use a series of cable cars of course! The Teleferico system is relatively new and was pretty impressive. The real advantage for us was that it provided an amazing way of viewing and seeing the city.
Each line was its own colour and each station was colour coded to match the line, even down to the colour of the benches, trash cans, and signage.
The view from the teleferico back towards the area of La Paz that we stayed in.
One of Alvaro’s sisters has a three-year old son who took to the girls, especially Annika. He really opened up on our ride on the Teleferico and was asking Annika all sorts of questions in Spanish. It was pretty cute to watch them try to interact.
Many cool views of the city both during the day, and at night.
All the rest…
These are only two of about thirty food pictures we have but this post is getting too long already and we don’t want to bore you with too many food stories. However, these were two note worthy ones. The one on the left was plantain topped with charque which is kind of like a type of crunchy jerky cut into really small pieces. This was voted by the family as the best appetizer we have had one this trip to date. The dish on the right was also an very amazing appetizer but unique in that it was cow heart and potatoes, all coated in a special sauce – classic Bolivian and often found as a street food called anticucho.
The picture on the left is the view from our AirBnB. As we have observed in other Latin American countries, the new and large buildings seem to grow up around the older smaller buildings. The small little house with the yard you wouldn’t really even know it is there from the street as all you see are the blue gates. However, we could see kids playing, a women hanging her laundry, and dogs running around in that yard, all the while surrounded by these large buildings.
The picture on the right was a common site all over La Paz; these little stalls selling snacks, drinks and knickknacks. They seemed to be everywhere and it was hard to understand how they could all survive as a business.
Apparently there had been a sun halo the day that we arrived. We didn’t see it then, but the day before we left, there was another one which we did get to see. It is created by ice particles very high up in the sky.