So while Matt was off climbing a mountain, I stayed in La Paz with Linn where we went to a ridiculously hard Spanish school! La Paz was clearly the place to be though as we got to see Jade and Jack! On the boys' return Matt achieved a new record, second to the mountain climb, of eating the world's most dangerous vindaloo, for which he got a t-shirt!
La Paz is a crazy city, which is ridiculously high at 3,300m (ish) so walking up the hills requires a lot of effort. The fact that La Paz is also one of the most polluted places in the world, where the Shoe Shine Boys where balaclavas to protect them from the smog, makes walking around the city a problem.
La Paz being the seat of Government also enjoyed a lot of lovely demonstrations and riots on our last days in the city. These photos were taken by Matt out of the hostel window, the police at one end and the protesters at the other. After these photos were taken, the miners arrived and decided to create noise by throwing dynamite in the streets and they were met with tear gas by the police. Unfortunately for us the tear gas leaked into the hostel, pepper spray as it turns out is really horrible! Luckily the demonstrations have long lunch breaks (no joke, this is South America) so we were able to work around them and planned to leave the city the next day!
One of many women in La Paz who wear traditional dress and can be seen around the city, struggling to make ends meet. However, this is an amazing city which definitely has to be seen to be believed.
No comments:
Post a Comment