La Paz, Bolivia

The city of Peace.
I spent several days in La Paz just wandering around and taking in the city and the mountains surrounding. I took a walking city tour from my hostel and learned so many things about the history and the people of the city.  For example, there is a river that flows under the main road of the city and it used to be the dividing line between where the indigenous people and where the Spanish people lived.  

For our first stop, we walked to the city prison, written about in the book Marching Powder. It is the only prison that is fully run by the prisoners. The guards stand on the outside but the prison functions on its own on the other side of the wall. The government does not own the prison and once the prisoners enter, they have to pay an entrance fee and buy their cell. The more money they have, the nicer of a cell they can buy. In addition to this, the prisoner's wives and children live inside the prison with them. Most of the prisoners are serving time for drug trafficking but the strange thing is that many of them have cocaine laboratories inside the prison and it is said to be "one of the best sources of Cocaine in the country." I could talk for an hour about the prison but I would recommend reading the book if you are interested, it's absolutely fascinating!

The next city site we visited was the Mercado de las Brujas (the witches market). Here, the witches sell llama fetuses to give as offerings to Pacha Mama (mother earth God) when people build new houses, asking for her blessing to disrupt the tierra (earth). They also sell idols and potions and ceremonial things to burn asking blessing for anything and everything you could possibly imagine. The witches are specially selected to be a witch and they have a story of their own. In order to be a witch, one must be struck by lightening and survive. Their "powers" can be passed down to their oldest daughter and all the shops sell the exact same thing so one must "listen to their heart" to feel the pull of the most powerful witch.

Another wonderful thing about the city is the teleférico system. Basically, it is a system of cable cars used as public transport to efficiently and cheaply travel from one end of the city to the other. It's essentially a big gondola car that runs through the stations and the different lines run to different areas. In such a poverty affected country, it is so neat to see such modern and technologically advanced innovations that we don't even really have in the United States.

During one of my days in the city, I took a bus to Chalcataya, famously the world's highest altitude ski resort. I rode the bus up a steep and winding road to the small mountain refuge at 17,000ft. From there we walked up to the top of the mountain and enjoyed the view of the beautiful snow covered Andes all around us.

That afternoon, I visited La Valle de la Luna, a desert-like valley with crazy rock formations and bright red rocks. It was such a stark contrast to the mountains surrounding. 

In summary, La Paz was a very interesting visit. From the disparity in wealth to the wild landscapes, I really enjoyed exploring a new urban scape.