La Paz, Bolivia

9th September- 12th September 2017

After the blessing of Amber, we got on the truck and drove away from Copacabana. I was sad to have my final drive on her because she has been such a great truck and I have loved having David and Rianne as tour leaders.

We drove for about 10 minutes before hopping out for a quick photo stop over Lake Titicaca – the size still amazed me! It was such a beautiful view, looking over the  lake.

After the photo stop, we drove a bit further, heading towards the Tiquina Straight. Just before we got there, we had another photo stop but everyone was too tired/ lazy to get out, so we didn’t stop for long. I asked Rianne to take a photo for me out the window, so she literally hung out of the window trying to take it. They were good views though.

We got to the port and had to get off the truck; Amber was going on one boat (which looked like a floating piece of wood that wouldn’t hold her weight) and we got on another boat. David drove Amber onto a very unstable looking ‘boat’ and we walked to a different part for our passenger boat – we were trusting this boat with all of our things.

The boat ride for us was only about 20 minutes – it was only a small section of the lake but to drive around it would take ages. Amber’s boat took a bit longer but it gave us time to get over to that part of the port and we had time for a toilet stop.

Once Amber and David had arrived, we got back on and began our drive to La Paz. It was just before 12, so I was hoping our lunch stop wouldn’t be much further down the line because I knew it was going to be a good one! We were hoping it would take around 4 hours to get to La Paz, but because of the blockades that the woman in the café told us about, we weren’t sure if it would take longer.

After about an hour of the journey, we stopped for lunch with a view of the mountains; they didn’t look real, they looked like a painted backdrop. The lunch was so tasty, as I had hoped; it was the best lunch I have had so far in South America.

We had to take a different route around to La Paz, over bumpy roads, which didn’t look like roads but David said they were on his map, so we trusted it. There were some steep dips which were tricky for Amber to get down, but she did eventually.

After about four hours of driving, we could see La Paz in the valley of the mountains. We only had a short drive left until we reached our hotel.

Although the distance was short, it still took us quite a while to get to the hotel, because there was so much traffic! The roads were carnage but we eventually arrived just before 5. We checked in and I was sharing with Sabrina again which works out well because we are continuing onto the new truck together so we didn’t have to do any swapping. We had until 7.30 to chill out and get settled into our rooms before we met for the departure group dinner.

Once we were in the room, I had a quick nap before doing some laundry and showering. I thought that two and a half hours would have been too long to wait for dinner but the nap filled my time nicely.

We all met at 7.30 and walked to the restaurant for dinner – Rianne had booked us in somewhere that Leo had recommended to her in Copacabana. We all sat down on the long table and got given our menus. I wasn’t overly hungry because I spread my lunch out over the afternoon so I ordered a sandwich and shared a portion of chips.

The food started to come out quite quickly and then all of a sudden, it stopped coming out. The waiter was starting to get in a fluster because he couldn’t handle the table but people weren’t really complaining at this point. It seemed to be the vegetarians and the people who ordered sandwiches that were waiting for their meals. The meals started to come out again but mine still didn’t make an appearance. Sabrina started to complain and the waiter said that Tom had eaten the sandwich that I had ordered; we kept on saying that it couldn’t be true and he must have ordered one too. I wasn’t the only one without a meal; I just found it funny really. I went down to speak to Tom to check what he had ordered and he said he didn’t order the chicken sandwich he had eaten, so he must have eaten mine! We had already complained at the waiter enough at this point now though and he was getting me another, so I found it even funnier. My sandwich finally arrived and I took it to go as everyone else had already finished about half an hour earlier.

Just before we were about to leave, Amelia got up to go to the toilet and just fell in a heap on the floor. She was okay after some water but she did look very pale, so we all went back to the hotel. It wasn’t exactly how the trip was supposed to end.

We got back to the hotel and a few of us who weren’t leaving and were feeling fine, decided to go back out for a drink. We wandered back towards the direction of the restaurant but nothing was open – very strange for a Saturday night! We found one bar which happened to be an English bar, so we went in there. We didn’t have much luck in there though either because when we tried to order drinks, the waiter didn’t seem to have anything that we wanted! We finally all found something that we wanted and just stayed for the one drink.

We walked back to the hotel, up a steep hill, and were back in no time. We all went up to our rooms and went straight to bed – it is probably the latest I have stayed up since arriving in South America!

We had two full free days in La Paz, so I could have a lie in! Obviously I was awake at 7, but I didn’t have to get out of bed until I wanted to! I got up and dressed and met Katie for breakfast at 9. The breakfast was good: there were pancakes, bread, fruit, cereal, eggs and hot drinks.

After breakfast, we decided to take our time getting ready because it was Sunday and there didn’t seem to be much happening in La Paz. We met in reception at 11 and went out to explore.

We walked towards the street where we had eaten dinner, because it seemed to be the place where the most was happening. We walked to the bottom of there and around for a little while but we couldn’t really seem to find much to do. We got out our maps but felt like we were attracting too much attention to ourselves so thought it would be a better idea to find a café with wifi and try finding things to do that way.

We found our way back to what seemed to be the main street and walked up there to find a café. We sat ourselves down and ordered a drink each. Everyone (besides me because my phone is useless) started to research things to do in La Paz. I was in charge of finding the places on the map so we could figure out a plan. There really wasn’t much to do though and because we knew we had two full days, we weren’t exactly in a rush. We ended up staying in the cafe a little longer than planned and from here, we made our way back to the hotel because Naomi was leaving and we wanted to say bye.

After our goodbyes with Naomi, we went back out into La Paz to find somewhere for lunch; I ate my sandwich from dinner the night before, so wasn’t getting lunch, but I went along anyway.

We ended up in Cafe del Mundo, which was lovely. Because I had just eaten my sandwich, I decided to have a dessert while the others got their lunch. I had a chocolate creation which, as you can imagine, was filled with chocolate delights and I managed to eat it all!

After lunch, we decided to try and make something of the day (even though it was Sunday and most things were closed). We went towards the markets which were up a very pretty looking street – probably the nicest looking street in La Paz. We wandered up because our research told us that the witches markets were up there, but we couldn’t find them.

After looking around the market stalls, we went towards the main square. The main square was on the other side of town, so had to walk a little bit of a way. It did happen to be near the phone repair shop me and Katie were looking for though, so that was useful (although it didn’t open Sundays). We found the main square and although it had a couple of nice buildings, it was nothing like the other main squares we have seen. We must have stayed there long enough to take a photo before turning around and heading back to the hotel; the main square was also full of pigeons which was scary!

We arrived back at the hotel with about an hour to spare before the new welcome meeting. The meeting was at 6 and it was a chance to meet our new crew and fellow passengers for the next leg of the trip. There are only eight passengers in total and six of us (me, Sabrina, Katie, Jack, Joe and Char) have come from Amber. The two new passengers are Aaron, who seemed very shy and William, who was Sara’s brother; our new leaders are Lars and Sara and our truck is called Yana. I’m not sure how I feel about the change because I’ve had such a great start to the trip, but time will tell.

After going over all the formalities, we had some time to chill until dinner. Dinner was at 7.30 and it was a joint dinner with the two trucks, so that was nice because we will be spending time with them in come places along the way. It was a buffet style dinner and there was plenty of food available for us to choose from. Included in dinner, was free wine, so I obviously took full advantage of this, only to regret it the next morning.

It’s a good job me and Sabrina get on so well because we were both in similar states that evening, but managed to look after each other.

Waking up with a hangover in altitude wasn’t fun, but the fact we had another free day helped a lot. We missed breakfast time because we slept through but that was okay because we needed the sleep. I managed to surface from my bed at around 12.15 and got myself showered and in a presentable state to go out for a bit. None of us minded staying in all morning because we weren’t exactly excited by La Paz.

Me, Sabrina and Katie left the hotel around 1ish and our priority was to try and fix our phones. We strolled at snail speed to the other side of town, only to find the shop was still shut – we weren’t best pleased with our hangovers. We looked for other shops but they were all too expensive, so decided to suffer with what we have for a little longer.

We walked around town for a little bit longer and walked back through the market stalls from the say before. We found a little cafe where we got some food – I didn’t eat much though because I wanted to see if I could stomach it first.

After lunch and a little extra wander, we found a mini supermarket to stock up on snacks for our first drive day in Yana – we knew it was going to be a long one.

We decided to go back to the hotel after the snack shop – we all needed the rest, after being up for a couple of hours with hangovers! We stayed in the hotel for a few hours and chilled; I packed my bag (again) ready to leave the next morning.

At about 6.30, we (me, Sabrina, Katie and Jack) went out for some dinner. We didn’t venture far because a few doors down was another English pub (which is what you need with a hangover) so we went in there. We had our dinner, paid up and went straight back to the hotel to bed, ready for an early start to Potosi.

La Paz wasn’t what I expected it to be like and there wasn’t really much to do. It was lovely to have a few days to myself though to lie in and recover and not have to stick to a schedule; that all comes to an end now though as the new leg of the trip begins with breakfast at 5am.

To travel is to live, Katie x