La Paz Part Dos

Saturday 21st May - after our strange bus journey from Copacabana to La Paz we were deposited just outside the centre and the bus driver told us that there was no way we could get a taxi. It didn´t look that far to walk so off we trudged with our rucksacks.

We quite quickly realised that something was amiss. The streets were all blocked off and there were a large number of raised benches. Then we saw a huge procession walking down the streets. We were on one side of it and needed to be at the other to get to our hotel. I still wasn´t feeling well and after an hour thought about just sitting down in the middle of the street. Then genius Reilly (yeah that´s Chris... his vacant look is all just an act) struck....there was an underground pass. We walked through this and up the steep hills only to be stopped at a pass going through the procession. We persuaded the security guard to let us walk alongside the procession....gringos walking beside these colourful costumes and masks. Eventually we got into the hotel. After dumping our bags we went straight back out.

The procession was an annual event on behalf of Lord Pado. The costumes and masks were unbelievable and lots of different colours walked past. Several people shook our hands and welcomed us to the main event in Bolivia. We wandered along and there was a lot of singing, dancing and drinking going on. We had something to eat and wandered back about 10.00pm the processions were still going strong although the people involved were starting to look a bit worse for wear. Every so often firecrackers would go off in the air.

On Sunday my birthday (we won´t mention the football)...we wandered around the witches market where Chris bought me some jewellery. We knew that it was going to be a quiet occasion as most of the folks we had met up with were going their separate ways. So we headed out at night (after receiving a few phonecalls...thanks again it was good to hear from you) to Mongos.

We decided to have a good night out and Chris managed to buy some candles and Winnie the Pooh hats. What was even more surprising was that he managed to ask the waiters to put the candles in some tiramusu and bring them out (a big feat for our Sir). After dinner out came the Tiramusu. I looked at the candles....something wasn`t right....they had them round the wrong way 53. That explains why the waiter said I looked really good for my age.....we passed the party hats around the pub and were invited to join a group of people for a drink....it turns out that this group was just finishing their tour with Budget Expeditions (who we where due to join up with on the following Wednesday) and that our tour leader was there. We ended going out to a really bizarre club with three others called the ´Love club´ which was a chinese restaurant during the day and a disco come Kareoke bar at night. I managed to get a free birthday drink which was set on fire and had to drink in one go through a straw....I think that really did me in! We arrived back at the hotel at 4.30am and had to wake someone up to get in.

Monday was a bit of a wasted day (I think I might have still been drunk) and the last couple of days we have spent trying to catch up on the internet. Although that has probably been a saving grace as there have been several large strikes here and yesterday we think we walked through some remenants of tear gas. As we walked along the main street near the cathedral some young boys threw something at the police and we had to quickly get out of the street as the police responded by firing in the air....so we are being ultra cautious and looking down and up streets at the moment before walking down them.

The strikes continued which meant we couldn´t start our tour on the Thursday....so we had to spend another couple of days in La Paz. We also witnessed several canisters of tear gas being lobbed off of the top of buildings onto a passing crowd of protestors who dared to go near the government buildings. We quickly moved away.

We watched the European Cup Final in a small pizza place near our hotel, the place was full of really loud Israeli guys supporting AC Milan. At half time these guys where full of themselves and where starting to be really annoying, so in the second half when Liverpool started to knocking a few goals in the place was greeted with Chris sole voice cheering the goals. When the game went to penalties the rest of the place was silent except for Chris laughing every time the Liverpool goalie saved one or a Liverpool player scored. When the final whistle went Chris just walked out without saying anything with all the Isralie guys looking cresfallen after their earlier anitcs at half-time. I did say to Chris at Half-time that the game wasn´t over and that they where being a bit presumptious.

On the Wednesday night we met the rest of our tour group for the first time, we all went for a meal together and then a few of us stayed out for drinks. The strikes were getting a lot worse and each day the crowds where getting much bigger and the police seemed to be ready for some serious action with large waterguns on top of tanks and every policeman with full riot gear and gas canisters at the ready. We where also told by out tour leader that they might not be able to get us out of La Paz until the following week, which would have meant that we might miss the Inka trail. As you could imagine this put a downer on the the whole group, we met up with a few of the group for the next few nights for dinner.

On the Friday at 6pm we had a meeting with out tour leader (Mark) who said that he still had no solution for getting us out of La Paz, so we all planned to meet up for dinner at 8:30. As we met for at 8:30 Mark had just been given word that we might be able to leave at 3:30 the following morning, so we decided just to stay in the pub until 2 and go back and pack then. After a slight delay we eventually managed to leave La Paz on Saturday morning....at 4.00am we were all bundled into three minibuses and snuck out of town early to avoid protestors and road blocks. The buses had to drive over the remnants of the bricks left behind from the roadblocks. We were also stopped at one point by one man who said we couldn´t go through but the driver drove through quickly.

We were too early for the border control and sat on the bus until 8am before we could pass through the Bolivian control and then the Peruvian side....by about 9.30am we were on our way.