La Paz, Bolivia...

Well, I just wanted to do another post because I was feeling quite inspired by the Bolivian people. Had some coca tea this morning and felt much better, so we headed out into the city for lunch at a lovely little place called Alexander Coffee, my first solid food for three days, yes! Then wandered very, very slowly around the city, checking out the colonial architecture along Calle Jaen, then to the Plaza Murillo which has even more pigeons than Trafalgar Square, and all the kids were letting them land on them, yuk, then to the Plaza San Francisco and up the incredibly steep Calle Sagarnaga to Gringo Alley and the Witches Market, where you can get the most beautiful Bolivian textiles for next to nothing. Oh, and the odd dried llama fetus if that takes your fancy! Back at the hostel now, needed to have a lie down from the altitude, and we're going to have trout from Lake Titicaca for dinner and spend the evening in the bar.

But anyway, my point was that La Paz, and Bolivia as a whole must be a very difficult place to live in. It's the poorest country in South America and the people have been worn ragged by poverty, but what strikes me is how they just 'get on with it.' You don't see people lying naked in the street begging and groaning, (and there was a fair bit of that in Brazil), you see the people trying desperately hard to make a living. All the women sit on the street with their babies in slings selling fruits or saltenas or woven textiles and they all dress very proudly in their elaborate pleated skirts and bowler hats and long plaits. But it must be incredibly hard, the altitude is punishing, it's below freezing at night, the pollution in La Paz is hideous and alot of men still work in the mines. Makes me think how lucky we are and how much more resilient we could be.

We're off to explore the posher, lower neighbourhood of Sopacachi tomorow, La Paz is shaped like a big bowl with the poorer houses clinging to the perilously steep cliffs up the sides of the city, and the more wealthier residents living at the bottom. Then on Friday we head to Puno in Peru to see Lake Titicaca.