We topped off our Uyuni visit with a fantastic pizza dinner at the hotel restaurant – Minuteman Pizza ... Pizza with Altitude 3670m. Been there – done that - Bought a T-Shirt. Really was the best pizza we've had in South America. Great food, great atmosphere and really friendly staff.
Shouldn't have enjoyed so much pizza and vino tinto ... because we followed our dinner with an overnight bus to La Paz – not so bad ... but about half the trip was on the roughest road ever. Worse than the Mistake Creek road ... or any other we have travelled on in Australia. We were sitting in the FRONT row on the TOP deck, so had a great view of the road ... when a view was possible through the clouds of dust. I should say that Lex had a great view, because I pulled the curtain across my view!!!! He reckons the 'road' ran along a creek bed for parts of the way. The vibrations (is there a stronger word than this???) shook everything ... moving our shoes and Jeff's laptop several rows back. They were lucky to rescue the laptop just before it slid down the stairs 2 rows behind their seat.
We arrived in La Paz just before daylight ... 11 hours on the bus and not game to brave the bus toilet ... the lights of this city from El Alto .. the top of the valley... is spectacular but not as good as the daylight view in my opinion.
Zac and Milka caught up with some sleep while we explored the streets and markets with Lex as the Tour Guide. I had remembered Zac's warnings from our previous trip – remove jewellery – carry as little as possible – be careful about people's sensitivities when taking pictures.
But we still drew attention to ourselves.
We wandered through market areas – tourist markets, witches markets (with all the llama fetuses etc) as well as local markets – clothing, food, party things etc. The scenes of bags stuffed with all sorts of items, people loaded with large heavy bags on their backs, babies sleeping amidst the goods or playing in cardboard boxes beside the stall, all the women in their colourful skirts, shawls and hats .... we just had to sneak a few snaps.
A local said something to us about 'la bolsa' – wasn't sure if he was warning us to be careful about the small bag containing a few purchases or to put the camera in the bag (balsa). But I put the camera away anyway ... to be on the safe side. Traffic around this area is chaotic with stalls set up on the roadway, pedestrians all over the roadway and cars and small minivans (buses) ploughing on through. Crossing these roads is a nightmare – and can only be achieved in stages, leaving us stranded in the middle of traffic often.
So when a group of local police ran passed me down the road and stopped the others (Lex, Jeff and Jill) .... with conversation in broken English and Spanish ... we were left wondering if we were being chatted because of – jay walking – taking photos in sensitive areas or violating peoples' privacy... or warning us about being in dangerous areas.
We hung about the street a bit longer (we weren't far from our hotel by this stage) as Jeff was getting his glasses fixed, and the group of police also remained in the area ... watching us. Not for long, because they approached us again, this time with an officer who could speak English. He explained that the area we'd been in was not safe for tourists – thieves, bag snatchers etc, and they wanted to warn us to be careful. They also asked if we needed help (as we hadn't moved on). They were very friendly and very caring about our safety.
Needless to say, Zac's reaction was a classic .... Mum, didn't I tell you to be careful about taking photos ... etc, etc, etc. Who's lecturing who now???
Next time we went out we went with Zac and Milka (our guardians).
Will be different today though ... as Zac and Milka have caught a plane back to Cusco - some people have to work, while we will stay in La Paz for another day before heading off to Puno. Should be interesting .... a border crossing on our own - without Zac.
Wait for the next entry .... hope there is a next!!!!
No comments:
Post a Comment