One Way United

We have finally moved on to bigger and better things as we find ourselves in the capital of this mountainous country, La Paz.  Our group has been battling sickness the past few days.  Julian was really sick in Potosi, resulting in us spending an extra day there.  From there, we took a bus from the one bus company in Potosi that decided to take advantage of the strike, to Oruro.  Oruro was your basic pit hole and we were planning on just spending the night there before heading to La Paz.  However, sickness struck again.  Fabrice got even sicker than Julian was and we had to call a doctor over to our hotel.  So we spent an extra day in Oruro which consisted of watching tv in our hotel.  That night, I even participated in the sick party by throwing up in our room and all over the bathroom.  After that I felt much better and haven´t felt that bad since.  Fabrice has only started feeling better today as he also ran a high fever with his nausea.  We believe the sicknesses resulted from a restaurant we ate at in Potosi.  Anyway, enough of this sick talk!  We are all good now and in perhaps the coolest big city I have ever been to.

Last night we arrived to La Paz from Oruro.  There were a few busses going to La Paz and since you can´t buy tickets at the bus terminal it was a mad house.  There were people everywhere trying to jam in busses.  It didn´t help that the place stunk like one of those dirty outhouses with thousands of flies flying everywhere.  We got the bus guys to throw our bags on top and got into this small bus.  Apparently, an Aussie riding in our bus got his bag stolen in the fray.  He set his bag down for a second and someone snagged it.  Apparently he had 2 cameras, his journal, and other valuables in it. 

A few hours later we came into La Paz.  It was nothing like I expected it.  We were driving along the side of a moutain and as we looked to our right we saw a huge city that somehow was squeezed into this small valley.  It was literally set right in the mountains.  I have never seen a big city that took my breath away like that.  Everywhere you walk, you are either walking uphill or downhill.  It is easy to find the main street since it is where it is impossible to walk down any further.  This city makes San Francisco look flat in comparison.  Oh yeah, and at 13000 feet, it is the highest capital in the world.  We will probably spend a day or two here before heading to Lake Titicaca.  Anyways, I love you all, and email me sometime! 

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So we’re back in Potosi again. The nation wide bus strike makes getting anywhere a real challenge. We were hard pressed to decide to stay in Sucre when this really nice girl at a hotel did her best to give us ideas on how to get out of there (and offers of a reduced rate for a night’s stay if nothing worked). Ideas came in the form of hailing cabs all the way to La Paz (a nine hour journey with four guys, oh cramped) to jumping in the back of a truck and motoring that way. Someone tipped us off that in Potosi there were cabs leaving for La Paz for not too much money so we decided to jump in a cab back up to the highest city in the world. Once there we discovered that the cab thing wasn’t true but there was one bus that would take us to Oruro which is about two hours from La Paz. So we sat in a restaurant for an evening and as amazing luck would have it we were able to find a TV station that had the NBA playoffs showing! This may not seem like a big deal to you but we had been trying ad nauseam to find such a treasure with no luck. We actually found on ESPN the world domino championship (I am not kidding; I didn’t know there even WERE professional domino players). So we sat down to watch the Cavaliers take on the Wizards in a heated match with some very sketchy calls. Unfortunately the Bolivians don’t stay up that late and we had to leave at the beginning of the fourth quarter. Jordan and I frantically tried to find another TV to no avail. Damn shame too as it went into overtime and Lebron won it with the shot of his career to date. The next day we were going to take the bus but Julian got really sick so we had to lounge around for the day. We did run into our friend Mounya who was in the area. I said goodbye for what would probably be the last time as she had to go home a lot sooner than she had planned due to work related reasons. Other than that we went to see The Longest Yard at the theater (which started about twenty minutes earlier than the poste time) and played a lot of cards. This afternoon we will head to Oruro, where we hadn’t actually planned to go but when you’re traveling you have to be flexible. Hopefully we can make it to La Paz very soon (or at least to a TV). Love to all.

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Welcome to a very picturesque town in a nice green valley. This place is great if you have no desire to really do anything but sit around and vegetate. Good thing too as we may be stuck here for a while. One day we went to see the dino tracks, a local tourist attraction where you go see the Guiness World Record’s longest preserved dinosaur tracks. Rather interesting, but made much more entertaining by the fact that a couple guys from New Zealand were making their own fake documentary and had lots of humorous comments for us, most of which are poor Spanish guide did not understand.

Aside from that we went to see “The Fog” quite possibly the worst horror movie in existence, which was seen in the worst movie theater I’ve ever been in. We also went to this bar/lounge that shows movies and saw “City of God”, a fascinating, and harrowing, true story about Wilson Rodriguez growing up in Rio de Janiero. I’d heartily recommend it if you can sit through excrutiatingly violent movies.

Also took a cab to the nearbye town of Tarabuco and saw their famous Sunday market with lots of authentic handwoven goods. Didn’t buy anything though.

Other than that we haven’t done much but eat, drink, and be merry in this little town. Did run into our friends Sam and Katie from England very briefly. We probably would have left by now except that May 1st is Bolivia’s Labor Day, which they take rather seriously. There were demonstartions and music and speeches in the main plaza this morning along with a few firecrackers. The buses also seem to have shut down for the time being either due to extended holiday or possible bus union strike. Either way we may not be going anywhere for a bit. When we finally due it will be either to Cochabamba or straight to La Paz. Peace all!

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