La Paz

We rumbled stop-start through the choking streets; crowds of people thronged the pavements either side of us, while cheap multi-storey red brick building loomed above. And in the shops, the flickering white-hot light of the soldering iron worked tirelessly, the constant construction of a city growing rapidly. This must be La Paz.

'This is El Alto - The Heights,' I overheard a long-time ex-pat ahead of us explaining. 'all the people from the countryside end up here, and it's now as big as La Paz itself'. She motioned out the far window to her friend - that is La Paz.

And there it was. From the heights we saw down into the mountain cauldron, a giant sea of red buildings swirled at its base; splashed up the valley sides and hung like precarious droplets to steep ledges. 2 million souls all jostling in the morass of busy streets and highways.

La Paz

La Paz has a bad reputation - from crime to a lack of culture, to just being plain unattractive. Many other travellers were missing it out altogether or spending one night in transit to get out to the 'real' Bolivia as soon as possible. But any capital betrays the ambitions and aspirations of its people: and amongst so many millions there are always good times and good places. So Mhairi and I had resolved to spend three days getting to know the city. Furthermore, La Paz seems to know its reputation for being dangerous and has decided to capitalise on it: its signature day trip is the WMD road - a 3000m downhill mountain bike notorious for the number of people who injure or kill themselves by going over the edge (? In the last year, free T-shirt if you survive). It has South America's longest and fastest zip line a day trip away. And of course as we sat down to our meal on the first night arriving at the Star of India, in true British-Indian style, it had South America's hottest curry and a challenge to finish it (again, free T-shirt). It is almost all about excitement and adventure with a hint of danger in La Paz. And that leads to a very young crowd. In Cusco we'd seen the tired, old Japanese and American tourists filling buses with withered arms holding cameras for that bucket-list photo of Macchu Picchu. Here it was all pubs and clubs with free shots, and the appeal of riotous fun wherever we went, everyone willing to swap stories of their latest crazy experience.

To avoid the worst excesses, we'd again hooked up with a quieter hostel - Residencial Latino - where we could again sleep well without the fear of noisy parties. We were to get direct experience of such a hostel on our second day in La Paz at the Wild Rover. Signed in as guests to watch the rugby, I watched breakfasting hostellers have cider or vodka-orange with their toast, all big believers in hair of the dog. And it was no surprise when we took the bus to the wrestling that the riotous, drunken guys at the back were all inmates of that hostel.

Courtyard of the beautiful Central Art Museum, La Paz

Our first day though was cultural, and the main thing that stood out - Angels, with guns. The central art museum of Bolivia in La Paz is relatively impoverished but 16th Century oil paintings of the angelic host brandishing an arquebus or two are not easily forgotten. The highlight for us was the modern art of the first floor where the beautiful flowing stone sculpture work of Maria Nunez del Prado was presented. A lot of the other twentieth-century art still vacillated between idyllic rural scenes and dystopic visions of the urban present. Bolivia still lives with a lot of the pain from how both its near neighbours and those further afield have despoiled its progress into the modern world.

San Francisco Church

Nowhere was this more clear than in the coca museum. It painstakingly outlined the use of coca leaves in traditional custom for hundreds of years where the leaf helped bind communities together. It showed the scientific evidence that coca is beneficial for the respiratory system and contains a high concentration of vital nutrients as well as providing a stimulative effect similar to caffeine - vital when most of the population worked thin, high-altitude land. It was America that first synthesised cocaine: Sigmund Freud was a massive user. It was a wonder drug for pain relief until it got out of control and was misused. At that point two things happened: pharmaceutical companies lobbied to have cocaine banned while they could sell their inferior synthetic substitutes (novocaine and others). Secondly, it was the coca leaf that was declared the root cause of the illegal narcotics problem, and the US (with UN backing) sent in its agents to destroy crops in Bolivia, aiming at eradication. Of course at this time Western governments still bought coca leaves from Bolivia to synthesise cocaine for research purposes, and Coca-cola still bought hundreds of tons a year to add flavour to its leading brand soft drink. But the implication was clear - Bolivia couldn't be trusted managing itself, and years went by where coca was destroyed to the impoverishment of local communities, economically and culturally. With the accession of Evo Morales to the Bolivian presidency, himself a former coca farmer, things have changed. Bolivians chew coca with a defiant air, they point out that cocaine is an American drug used predominantly by Americans (50%??), and Europeans. America still blames the source. The argument continues...




With a rugby fuelled Saturday at the Wild Rover as mentioned before, I can only say again: La Paz has a lot of tourist-friendly joints for drinks. Oliver's pub saw us finish our evening dancing with a mixed crowd to the best of world pop music, with the odd free vodka and grenadine shot passed across the bar to us. All that remained for us to do the next day was scrape ourselves together for the afternoon's Cholitas Wrestling. This low-rent show-wrestling came complete with its own cast of masked characters - the American Ninja, Doberman, Satanica: even Batman made an appearance. The perfect hangover cure for sluggish minds, the wrestlers sprayed foam at each other, bashed tin cans on each others' heads and generally misbehaved. True to form, after many setbacks, the good wrestler always beat the baddie, justice was always served.

Cholita takes a break

We'd enjoyed our time in La Paz, it was easy and accessible with the most English speaking joints we could ask for: aside from the drinks, all the restaurants were great food and great value. Perhaps its because tourism is a lit more ghetto-ised around Sagarnaga, or just the capital city effect, but every waiter had perfect English and they were exceptionally friendly. We'd also walked around a lot in our three days, and seen cholitas running every kind of street stall imaginable, their traditional clothes marking them out distinctly from the totally urbanised youth of the city in jeans and brand label tops. As Bolivia aspires to me more independent from foreign influence, and assert its national identity, these ladies are the engine room of small business and no Bolivian goes a day without buying their snacks, drinks, and common items. They were some of the most vocal crowd members at the Cholitas Wrestling; they were also behind every popcorn and souvenir stand. But they are not in any of the banks or museums or tour agencies: they seem to only fill the many gaps in Bolivia's infrastructure in the lowest paid positions. It feels like they deserve more. In fact, just like in the modern art museum, it feels like Bolivia needs to reconcile the idyllic rural life which still provided its coca leaf and workforce, with its ongoing struggle with modernity.

How do YOU like your Toby?