It´s been quite a week since I left sunny Arequipa.
La Paz is probably one of the strangest cities I´ve been to. It kind of reminds me of somewhere, but I can´t place where for the life of me. It´s poor, grubby, high, you´re constantly out of breath, there are so many weird things and juxtaposed cultural references. Oh, and a million fried chicken shops.
It´s pretty cool, and I´ve already been warned that it´s the kind of place you can get stuck!
My first day or two were spent mainly just wandering around getting my bearings, which isn´t that hard, given the main road that runs through the centre is ´down´and everywhere else that leads off it is pretty much úp´.
I didn´t think I´d been affected too badly by the altitide when I was in Cusco, bar a few headaches, but after a couple of days here, plus not sleeping, I had a bit of a moment the other day.
After quite a heavy night (the two girls I was sharing with were quote ill, so I went down to the bar to meet some more newbies), not really sleeping very well (there´s been a snorer and a sleep-talker in my dorm the last week, but been trying to avoid turning to the earplugs until it gets REALLY desperate, trying to retrain my ears I guess!) anyway, a bit of a rough night, got up, went for breakfast, and started to feel a bit queasy. Lay there for a few hours, knackered but unable to sleep, trying to read but essentially just feeling like I was going a little bit crazy, decided to go out for a wander for some air.
As some of you may know, Christmas is always a bit of a weird time for me. Or it has been the last few years anyway.
That´s been playing on my mind – missing my dad, my family who are still around, my friends, and the usual home comforts I guess I took for granted that I wouldn´t be too upset about (hope that doesn´t sound terrible, and that you know what I mean!).
So, was all going a bit weird and my mind was going into overdrive, so I decided to go out for a walk to get some air and see some stuff around the city.
Only went up and down a couple of streets to the ATM and up to one of the pretty squares two blocks from the hostel, and I couldn´t get my breath.
I´d been chatting with a Belgian guy earlier that morning who said he´d also been having problems, but I hadn´t felt too bad.
Anyway, a very odd day was spent walking around feeling like an old woman, unable to breathe (feeling for any asthmatics reading this!), kept having to stop and rest, which obviously makes you feel rather vulnerable, and eventually made my way to the coca museum for a bit of a rest.
Then thought I was going to pass out or vomit whilst in there, reading the information about all the farming, processing, political and exporting of the coca leaves etc.
So I had to head into a restaurant to get my head together and wait till I felt less sick.
Went back and straight to bed after that, and been right as rain since.
So that was a bit of an odd one.
I think my key to things so far seems to be expect nothing, be prepared for everything, and just listen to your body and go at your own pace. I can´t believe I´ve already been here nearly a month, but each week seems to be packing a lot in, without feeling rushed, so it feels like I´ve already done a lot with the time I´ve been here.
Since then, on Sunday afternoon a bunch of us went to this local tradition called Cholitas wrestling. We all thought we were going to see local women battering each other to bits, but sadly (!) it was a bit like a very poorman´s WWF. In Bolivia.
Christmas eve, I bit the bullet and did the mountain bike trip, the World´s Most Dangerous Road, or the Death Road (sorry to anyone who advised me against it, but I´m glad I ignored you as it was brilliant!! As I didn´t have a similar death wish or ego to match some of the people doing it though, I took it nice and steady, taking in some of the most stunning scenery I´ve seen so far). There is a CD with photos on it that they´ve given us, but I need to work out how to upload and all that jazz. Starting to wonder if I should have bought my own laptop with me after all. That said, I´ve seen a lot of people around the hostel seem to be glued to their phones/laptops/WiFis etc and I´m kind of glad I didn´t. And it´s just one more thing to worry about I suppose!
Christmas in the hostel was lots of fun (sorry for any Skype related non-calls, but I think the world and their wife was trying to get through on Xmas day and every Australian under the sun was trying to get through on Christmas eve!). We (I´ve been hanging around with three girls from Sydney, Kent and Galway the last couple of weeks, plus an Irish guy who left yesterday to climb the big mountain outside La Paz, who, oddly enough, I used to work with his cousin Eamonn – any BCL-ites past or present will appreciate that one) all had Christmas turkey and all the trimmings and spent Christmas day, well, doing what everyone would have been doing at home which was eating and drinking too much and generally having a good time.
Ended up in this shonky nightclub briefly on Christmas day night, but didn´t stick around too long as there were too many weirdos in there!
Tomorrow the girls and I are headed to the jungle, via a place called Rurrenabaque (or something like that), for a few days, back to La Paz for New Year´s eve.
There has been a lot of toing and froing about where to be and what to do for NYE, and logistics have dictated that I´ll be in La Paz for that as well as Christmas. We´re staying in a really cool hostel with lots of fun people, so it was a case of better the devil you know. Also, the jungle trip gets us out and back a day later than we´d hoped, so to avoid a 14 hour overnight bus ride on New Year´s Eve, we figured just stay here (familiar, have made some friends etc) and then move on 2nd Jan.
Thinking Sucre, Potosi and then Salar de Uyuni after here, before heading into Chile (don´t worry mum, will keep an eye on the volcano news!!).
Apologies for the lack of photos, but the computers here don´t seem to be recognising my camera files. But I´m sure there will be more than your fair share once I suss that out. Or get home.
ToBeShaw 