La PazPersonal travel impressions in stories and pictures from La Paz, Bolivia. Click on the pictures to enlarge, send as a free e-card, or download for personal use. You can locate La Paz and navigate the world using Google Earth Show on map
S 16° 29.652
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After some quiet days at lake Titicaca, I travelled to La Paz where I stayed one week. This is a perfect base from which to explore the city itself and some other sights in the surroundings. Coincidentally I also assisted to a wedding ceremony and -party and got to know the local very strong liquors which were served in abundance. It is still hard to tell how I returned to my hotel after the party finished ... I explored the city and its markets. I made an excursion to a mountain pass which reaches over 5,000 metres. I walked around the lunar landscapes. And ... I enjoyed a White Christmas!
On the 25th December, when I was taking a rest in my little hotel. there was so much hail coming down, that the streets and roofs were completely white, and it was only possible to cross the main streets by climbing someone's back. One of the unfortunate features of La Paz is that the centre is in a valley, surrounded by a plateau on all sides. This has the side effect that precipitation coming down in the surrounding area, in the end always reaches the city centre. It was fascinating how within a very short time, the streets filled with hail and rain, and soon streets which were running up/down were turned into fast flowing rivers, while the other streets turned into reservoirs of water in which cars were floating.
I decided not to stay inside, but instead to enjoy the crazy state in which the city found itself. A side effect was that I was completely soaked, but I could not care less. This was too special to be missed! Of course it was only possible to go up or down the streets, the side streets were only accessible to boats (which I did not see anywhere). The chaos reached its maximum on the main street where eventually most of the the water of the city ended up.
