Day 2: La Paz

After a fitful nights sleep, Jo and I woke up to a sunrise over a different continent.  Our first view of Bolivia was from up top, through the clouds.  It all looked very...brown to me.

At about 6:30am, after an eight hour flight, we touched down in La Paz. Jo and I were both sooo excited to be in Bolivia.  Jo had accidentally given his family the wrong day that we would be arriving, so they had all gotten up early to meet us at the airport the day before (oops)  We weren't exactly sure who would be meeting us today.  After getting our visas and collecting our luggage, we went to find out...

Turns out, We had quite the reception.  Luiz (Jo's uncle), Lizzie (Jo's aunt), Gabo (Jo's cousin), and Martha (Jo's grandma) were all waiting for us.  They had even made us welcome signs!

After hugs all around and getting wrapped up in scarves to protect us from the chilly air (compliments of Martha,) we were off.  The Bolivian airport is located high above La Paz, at an elevation of over 13,000 feet, in an area called El Alto.  The population that lives there is very poor; some of them don't have electricity or running water.  La Paz itself is not impoverished.  In fact, it's a city that is trying to modernize, as evidenced by the ever increasing amount of urban development.  Here's a shot of the city from a lookout point we stopped at as we drove down to where the Alipazes lived:

We were both tired and a little worse for wear after the long night on the plane, but our hosts insisted we take a picture together.

After taking advantage of the photo op, we continued to wind our way down to the heart of the city, where Luis and Lizzie lived.  On the way, we sipped mate de coca, which is supposed to help with altitude sickness.  It's a tea made out of the coca leaf, which has a special place in Bolivian culture.  It has been used for centuries for various medicinal and cultural purposes.  It also happens to be the raw material for cocaine.  Although somewhat controversial, Bolivians are proud of their coca and I don't think it will be going anywhere anytime soon.  La Paz is located at around 12,000 ft elevation, so we both appreciated the tea very much. Plus, it's damn good drinkin'.

Once we got to where Luis and Lizzie lived, we sat around their kitchen and drank some more mate, but we were both super tired, so we took our leave as soon as it was polite in order to go upstairs and rest.  The Alipazes were kind enough to give us the entire upstairs to ourselves, and we promptly took advantage of their generosity and fell asleep.  About three hours later, we were refreshed and ready to go.  I wanted to get out and get an initial impression of La Paz, and I had the perfect tour guide to show me around, so off we went:

Our first stop was to go find Martha at the libreria where she worked.  We stopped off at a mall along the way to get directions, and found some latex nipples I thought worthy of photographing.  The tongue was pretty awesome as well.

And these little random toy thingees seemed interesting, so they got a photo too.

The libreria ended up being really close.  We chatted with Martha and a few other members of Jo's family for a bit.

Neither Jo nor I had any clue who these children were, but they sure are cute.

Here's a random shot of the little plaza in front of the libreria.  I ended up taking a lot of these random point-and-shoot pics, just for memory's sake.

We continued our walk.  Here's some cool graffiti we passed.  As I would come to learn, Bolivians eat a ton of meat.  Nevertheless, I love how the veggies are representin'.

And a bus.  With 'Bolivia' written on the side.  Woop-woop!

I think the reason I took this random shot is because is shows the bad-ass sandstone cliffs that surround La Paz.  You can see them no matter where you are in the city.  Even though they are steep and crumbly, the poor population still find a way to continually build on them.

Jo and I kind of just wandered around, getting a feel for the city.  Here is a picture of a security hut.  These things are everywhere in the city.  Both businesses and wealthy homeowners hire security guards to sit in these little huts all day to watch out for suspicious characters.  It must be a miserably boring job.  La Paz has an underlying paranoia that is evident from all the security.  And the walls that enclose every single house in the city.  And the shards of broken glass topping the walls, but more on that later.

Another random shot of the city.  This is the neighborhood where Luis and Lizzie live. It's very modern and expensive.  Not all parts of the city look like this, by any means.

Here's a picture of a wall.  Don't ask me why I like distressed walls so much.  I just do.  Lucky for me, they were abundant in the city.

Here's some of that glass I mentioned earlier.  This was a ubiquitous site around the city.

Here's The Boy, happy to be back home.

And some more graffiti.  There was tons and tons of graffiti around the city.  Some of it was political in nature, some of it was purely artistic, some of it expressed love for a girl and some, like this, seemed just to want to send a simple message to the world.

Check out the cobbled streets.  Although most of the city was paved, these cobble streets were sprinkled throughout La Paz.  Very charming, no?

Jo wanted to go to visit the school he had attended while growing up in Bolivia.  The school is behind the gate.  Even though the school was closed for the summer break (it's summer in Bolivia when it's winter in Colorado) the security guard (who was sitting in his little box) wouldn't let us in.  I guess we just looked too suspicious.

Here's more of that crazy glass.

And a good shot of those cliffs.  Check out the wall in the foreground.  It has some mighty fine examples of street art on it.

Observe:

Shoutin' out to the world where I am.

Jo took this for the benefit of his brother Sterling, who loves hummers.

Another fantastic graffiti wall.

"Never stop dreaming."

Monkeying around.

I  lovelovelove this shot of Jo in front of the faces.

Hey!  Guess what?!?  Another random street shot!

We eventually started winding our way back to the house.  On the way back, we made a point to stop by a little fruit vendor we had passed by earlier in order to get some fresh squeezed juice.  I had orange papaya and Jo had apple and something else I can't remember.  So good! So fresh! So cheap!

Here's the nice lady who squeezed our juice.

And CHECK OUT these insanely gigantic humongous avocados (or paltas, as they are called)!  This was the moment that I knew I was really going to like Bolivia.

This was a cute tree all decorated up for Christmas.  Event though we did see some Christmas decorations around the city, it's nowhere near as over-the-top as it is here in the states.  Bolivians approach the holiday with a little more subtlety than do Americans.

We got home shortly after this.  We were both tired, so after a quick dinner it was off to bed for us.  Pretty good start to the trip, I must say!