7:00am Here I am in Bolivia! I just landed in La Paz International Airport, and I'm trying to communicate with the taxi drivers who don't speak English. I knew I should have learned a couple of sentences in Spanish. Oh well... I'll get by. Mustering all my non-existing Spanish, I told the taxi driver "Hotel Fuentes, por favor". He says something back to me... Blank face... No idea what to say. I raised my hands and shrugged... The driver understood that I'm helpless and asks other taxi driver for direction. 1 min later, we are on our way to the hotel.
We take a circling road that slowly descend into the bowl that is La Paz, you can see the whole city sprawling, it's impressive. All the buildings/houses are built in bricks, which gives the whole city a monotonous orange in color.
7:45am I'm at the Fuentes Hotel. The receptionist tells me to go to the 4th floor, room 403. Of course it's the 4th floor... I have to catch my breath between each flight of stairs due to the altitude and my backpacks!
Knock, knock, knock on door 403... No one replies. I wait outside for about 1min, then I see the door opening with Max and Camille in boxer shorts jumping at me! Sooo good to see them!!
They thought I would knock and get in the room, so they were hiding in the closet... "Ah les cons!".
8:30am: we went down to the local market. It's sort-of like a parking with several floors, all in concrete, but with thousands of small stalls and shacks. Each floor has it's own specialty: meat, flowers, groceries, fresh juices, and cooked food.
We went to the cooked food section for a hearty breakfast of rice and chicken!
9:00am: walking around in the neighborhood
11:00am: nap at the hotel
2:00pm: back to walking around the city. It's very very polluted. We have a hard time breathing due to the altitude, but also due to all the buses and cars that emit a black smoke with each acceleration.
3:00pm: We decide to take one of the city's telepherique to "El Alto", which gives us a great view of the city.
3:30pm: At the Telepherique station of El Alto, we meet a Turkish girl who's on an almost-infinite holiday. She's quite nice, and we walk around El Alto with her. Not much to see at El Alto, so we decide to go back to the city.
4:00pm: we take a 2-Bolivianos minibus (30 cents USD) to go back to the place "San Francisco" near our hotel. We walk around some more and go to the Bus Terminal to organize our trip to Lake Titicaca tomorrow.
8pm: we don't want to venture too far at night as we have heard that La Paz isn't safe at night. We pick an "English Pub" and get in for food and drinks. So much for Bolivian food!
10pm: in bed
We take a circling road that slowly descend into the bowl that is La Paz, you can see the whole city sprawling, it's impressive. All the buildings/houses are built in bricks, which gives the whole city a monotonous orange in color.
7:45am I'm at the Fuentes Hotel. The receptionist tells me to go to the 4th floor, room 403. Of course it's the 4th floor... I have to catch my breath between each flight of stairs due to the altitude and my backpacks!
Knock, knock, knock on door 403... No one replies. I wait outside for about 1min, then I see the door opening with Max and Camille in boxer shorts jumping at me! Sooo good to see them!!
They thought I would knock and get in the room, so they were hiding in the closet... "Ah les cons!".
8:30am: we went down to the local market. It's sort-of like a parking with several floors, all in concrete, but with thousands of small stalls and shacks. Each floor has it's own specialty: meat, flowers, groceries, fresh juices, and cooked food.
We went to the cooked food section for a hearty breakfast of rice and chicken!
9:00am: walking around in the neighborhood
11:00am: nap at the hotel
2:00pm: back to walking around the city. It's very very polluted. We have a hard time breathing due to the altitude, but also due to all the buses and cars that emit a black smoke with each acceleration.
3:00pm: We decide to take one of the city's telepherique to "El Alto", which gives us a great view of the city.
3:30pm: At the Telepherique station of El Alto, we meet a Turkish girl who's on an almost-infinite holiday. She's quite nice, and we walk around El Alto with her. Not much to see at El Alto, so we decide to go back to the city.
4:00pm: we take a 2-Bolivianos minibus (30 cents USD) to go back to the place "San Francisco" near our hotel. We walk around some more and go to the Bus Terminal to organize our trip to Lake Titicaca tomorrow.
8pm: we don't want to venture too far at night as we have heard that La Paz isn't safe at night. We pick an "English Pub" and get in for food and drinks. So much for Bolivian food!
10pm: in bed
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