Day 3: La Paz

It was our first full day in Bolivia, and Jo and I had every intention of hitting it hard.  We had planned to do a walking tour of the city, but Jo's head was not crazy about this idea.  Apparently, it was not happy with the sudden increase in elevation.  So, what to do?  Do a walking tour of Valle de la Luna, instead, of course.  Because that makes so much sense.

Valle de la Luna is a group of sandstone formations that are eerie and moon-scapish.  The LP called it "slightly overhyped," but I still wanted to see it.  We called our dear friend Gabo to be our tour guide.  He was more than willing to oblige.  Lizzie and Ricky gave us a ride up to the Valle, which took about 30 or 40 min, and Gabo met us there.  Here's a little tour of what we saw:

Wooden stairs showed us where to go.

The view from the Valle.

Sandstone formations everywhere.

Me.  Happy.

Me. And Jo. Happy.

Me and our trusty tour guide Gabo. He never smiles because he's embarrassed by his braces.

More crazy looking sandstone.

It was a beautiful, hot day.  Perfect for a stroll through a moonscape, I'd say.

This place rocked!

Check out the layers of sediment.  Cool.

Here we were trying to figure out how to balance the camera on a rock so we could get a picture with the three of us.

We weren't successful.  Luckily, a nice lady came along and helped us poor gringos out.

This flute player stood up on a cliff and played his heart out for us.  Normally when I'm out in nature I prefer more natural sounds, but his native flute was the perfect backdrop for our walk.

The boys.



Many of the formations had names.  This one was called "El Salto de la Viscacha," meaning "The Jump of the Viscacha (a llama like creature.)  Here The Boys are demonstrating what a Viscacha looks like when it jumps.



Yeah, we're cool.

Gabo!  Gabito!

Jo turned murderous at one point and tried pushing Gabo off a cliff.  He gets like that sometimes.

But Gabo wouldn't have it, and pushed Jo right back.  That a boy, gabino!

The landscape was very dry and had very little vegetation.  Every once in awhile you could find pockets of green, like this one.

Look how lovely.

This is a really clear view La Muela del Diablo, the Devil's molar.  It's a massive rock formation that can be seen from La Paz as long as there aren't too many clouds.  You can hike up to it if you're feeling adventurous.

Looking mooney, huh?

After walking around for over an hour, we took a minute to sit down in the shade.  And make weird faces.

Jo's happy because he gets to sit below the pretty pink flowers.


We had to get going because Gabo had a Mass to get to. Gabo's brother Mateo picked us up and dropped us off at Lizzie's house while they went to Mass.  Jo and I rested up until Gabo returned, because he really wanted to show us around uptown.  After joining up with him again, we set off to do some shopping.  Our destination was Calle Jaen, a popular tourist destination that was supposed to have some cute shops.

But first, a little snack:  Gabo had us try bunuelos, a delightful fried pastry, empenada, a cheese filled pastry, and api, a hot drink made from corn.  The api, in particular, was awesome.  It comes in yellow and red varieties, but Gabo assured me that it was best to get it mixed together.

While we were eating this parade strolled by.  No one really knew what was going on.  According to Jo, there are periodic public demonstrations that don't make a ton of sense to everyone else, but that make the demonstraters feel like they are being proactive.

Bellies happy, we continued on.  Here's a random shot of uptown.

And another one.  Check out all those electrical lines.

Jo insisted we make a stop at Plaza Murillo to feed the pigeons, or palomas as they are called in Bolivia.  I am so glad he did, because we ended up having a blast with those feathery little guys.  By "we" I mean "Jo and I."  Gabo, it turns out, is scared of pigeons.  Seriously.  So he spent his time off in a corner.  At one point we insisted that he at least try to feed the pigeons, so he grabbed a small handful of seed and quickly chucked it as far as he could before retreating to his corner away from the pigeons.

The atmosphere was so festive!  You couldn't help but be happy in a place like this.

Policemen, who are everywhere around the city.  I kept hoping to see one of them give in to what I know must have been a strong urge to feed the pigeons, but no luck.

Even though feeding the pigeons seemed to be an activity that only the little kids were partaking in, Jo and I were unfazed.

We bought some corn from this lady.

And went at it!

Those pigeons were fat and willing to do anything to get a tasty morsel of corn in their bulging bellies.

So fun!

The brave ones would come right up to your hand to get some corn.

"Got it!"

Here I'm getting in touch with my inner pigeon.

Every once in a while a little kid would come running through the birds and they'd fly up.  But then they'd land again. They couldn't resist free corn.

We could have stayed for hours, but we had shopping to do, so we took off.  Calle Jaen wasn't too far off.

Here it is!

I'm not quite sure why Jo's pointing at Gabo.  I just like the yellow wall.

Calle Jaen ended up being a cute little street.  Not nearly as big as I was imagining, but very cute, all the same.

 

A sweet, scruffy Bolivian dog we met along the way.

There were several museums along Calle Jaen.  Although we didn't have time to visit all of them, we did decide to go into this one: the Museum of Bolivian instruments.

A wall full of hats.  Photo op!

A pretty glass window.

Check out this instrument; it's made from an armadillo hide!

Here's Gabo, looking around.

The rooms were separated by instrument type.  Here Jo is checking out a display.  There were tons of cool instruments to look at.

"Hey, what are you looking at?"

Gabo's such a nice guy.  He makes friends wherever he goes.

These glass bottles made a really nice sound.

Bells.

The cool thing about this museum was that there were several types of instruments you could play.  Here, the boys are rocking out on some drums.

We spotted this cute green parrot thing in a tree.  Apparently, it had a friend and they lived at the museum.

Here they are, enjoying a meal together.

We were just about done, but we had to get a shot of the guard dog:

And then we were off.  We wanted to check out some of the streets in the area.

They were so BUSY.  Crowded and steep, no matter where you went.

We stopped at various street vendors along the way to try the goodies.  This was a sweets vendor, who sold these awesome little vanilla cookie things.  Mmmm.

And we found this lady, who was selling Bolivian cheese.  Bolivian cheese is SO GOOD.  Very stinky, but oh-so flavorful and delicious.  Bolivians don't seem to eat a lot of sliced cheeses such as cheddar and swiss and provolone, like American do.  Their cheese is typically harder and more flavorful.  We couldn't resist buying a chunk.

By this time it was getting late and dark, and we were all getting hungry.  Gabo had a restaurant that he wanted us to try, so we followed him. 

For the next hour. 

Let's just say we had a little trouble finding the place.  At one point, we were literally going around in circles.  He kept looking for the "Hotel de Presidentes."  He'd ask a street vendor, who would wave in some vague direction, giving Gabo fresh confidence.  We set off time and time again, only to end up on the same street corner we started from.  Even though Jo and I were tired and hungry and questioning our guide's sanity, Gabo didn't seem phazed in the slightest.  He was sure that the dang restaurant was around there somewhere, and we was determined that we find it. 

 He did, eventually, find it, but it didn't have anything vegetarian.  Fail.  So, we set off again.

Eventually we came to Cafe Alexander, a very Americanized place to eat.  But at this point I was so hungry I didn't care, so we ordered some din-din and scarfed it.  Well, I scarfed it.  Jo still wasn't feeling well (altitude sickness can be a bitch,) so he just nibbled some eggs.

Our trusty tour-guide may have led us on a wild-goodchase, but we still liked him. 

We were all tired, so we caught a trufi back home.  We visited with Ricky for a bit, then hit the sack.