La Paz, Bolivia: 20th Feb 10

Today we took the bus from Copacabana to La Paz, Bolivia’s capital. The journey took us along the banks of Lake Titicaca with spectacular views.

On the way we passed through many villages, which all seemed to be having celebrations of one type or another, with everyone dressed up in costumes – this seems to be a very regular occurrence around Bolivia.


At one point we got off the bus to cross the lake by boat – the bus followed on a makeshift barge and crossed the water at a very precarious angle – we honestly thought it was going to fall into the lake along with our luggage.


We drove on into the mountains – we’d read that La Paz is spread along the slopes of several mountains, so after driving across a plain for a while we thought we’d have to head upwards into La Paz. We were totally surprised when we rounded a corner and La Paz was laid out on slopes below us – we’d actually been driving across a high plateau, not a low plain as we’d thought.

The sight of the city took everyone’s breath away, La Paz is the highest city on earth and it really does look amazing when seen from above. Closer inspection however reveals that this is the capital city of a very poor country.

Despite the often dilapidated and scruffy appearance, the streets were buzzing and atmospheric, there seem to be market stalls along every street, with people plying their goods – we’ll be here for a couple of days before heading into the jungle and then we’ll come back for a couple of days before heading to the salt flats of Uyuni.