We were due to travel to Sucre, technically Bolivia’s capital city, but the city was blockaded by protesters, with no sign of the dispute being resolved any time soon, so we decided to go to La Paz earlier than planned.
La Paz or more formally La Ciudad de Nuestra Señora de la Paz, translated literally meaning The City of Our Lady of Peace, is a city quite different from any other we have been to so far on our journey. It is Bolivia’s commercial centre and for all intents and purposes the seat of government. It is set in the High Altiplano at an altitude of 3,600 metres, and together with its sister city El Alto with a combined population of well over 1.7 million it is the highest major conurbation in the world. To its West up on top of one of the surrounding mountains is El Alto a massive sprawling new city, which has gown up over the last 20 or so years, at an even higher altitude of over 4,100 metres.
Notwithstanding the altitude of La Paz, our first impression is that it is one huge market. Literally on every spare piece of roadside pavement has some market stall selling something. Even the islands in the middle of the roundabouts have market stalls, which themselves encroach into the road narrowing it substantially. The traffic, especially with the old American busses and literally hundreds of minibuses, which pick up passengers anywhere on the roadside for a couple of Bolivanos, is anarchic and chaotic. Also the pollution from the diesel and petrol fumes is choking, though it doesn’t create a fog of smog like Santiago de Chile as La Paz is not fully encircled in a bowl of mountains. The market traders, who are usually the Aymara women, complete with top hats, must breathe in the fumes pretty much 18/20 hours a day as they literally sit at the same level as much of the exhaust fumes is emitted.
Not only are there the usual stalls selling food, clothing and household effects on the road side, there is a block known as the witches market where the Aymara sell all sorts of traditional medicines and potions. Particularly disturbing are the aborted llama foetuses hanging from the top of the stalls together with the various herbs and other traditional medicines. It is not clear how all this works or what is the significance of the llama foetuses.
Down town La Paz has a few elegant colonial buildings, none more so than the old San Franciscan Church off the main thoroughfare Avenida Mariscal Santa Cruz. This church has ornate carvings in its stone works and much wealth on display inside.
Elsewhere is Plaza Murillo, named after one of the original heroes of Bolivia’s struggle for independence, who was hanged by the colonial defenders off a lamppost in the plaza, which now contains a statue dedicated to him. The main cathedral is on one side of the square, which took many years to build and is rather austere in comparison to the San Franciscan Church. Also in the plaza is the presidential palace, complete with uniformed guards and the national legislature. Particularly interesting on the national legislature is the clock tower on its roof. The clock is literally back to front and tells the time anticlockwise.
A little further away from the Plaza Murillo is Calle Jaen, La Paz’s most complete colonial street. The colonial buildings are all pretty well restored and are painted in a multitude of traditional matt colours.
In complete contrast to the old colonial buildings, anarchic traffic and markets is the El Teleferico, a modern state of the art urban cable car system. This was built with Austrian help and has a series of routes that complete a circuit around La Paz and joins El Alto to La Paz. The views from the cars are fantastic, especially on the Red Route that links the Old Train Station up to El Alto. Each car can seat 10 passengers and each route, determined by colour costs only 3 Bolivianos, and is a clean and efficient way around town.
The new town of El Alto has probably one of the biggest street markets in the world on a Sunday, selling pretty much everything. For example immediately outside the terminus of the Red El Teleferico Line is fifty or so stalls selling every car spare parts. The stalls of course largely managed by women. The market, split into areas of similar products is enormous and it feels like the whole of La Paz and El Alto is there.
Elsewhere in El Alto on Thursdays and Sundays is another of the whacky things in La Paz, the cholilta wrestling. The stars of the show are the traditionally dressed women, complete with large skirts, top hats, ear rings and long braided hair play out a form of wrestling. There is a lot of hair pulling, playacting and some more traditional wrestling moves, together with bent referees that make it a most unusual event to see. Most of the audience are tourists, with some locals too, and the crowd get really involved with the whole event, including lots of interactions with the cholitas and other participants.
Nearby to La Paz is Bolivia’s premier archaeological site, Tiwanaku, an ancient pre Inca set of ruins, which pose many unanswered questions. The Tiwanaku lived from 1,500BC to around 1,200AD, when their civilization declined, probably due to some form of climate change or drought. Much of their technology was adopted by the subsequent Incas, especially the building and construction techniques. Particularly thought provoking is some of the stonework at the secondary site of Puma Punku. Here the stones are sharply smooth with very advanced joins that allow the blocks to link snugly into place, which is very difficult if not impossible with today’s technology let alone what was available around a 1,000 years ago. Also there is evidence of consistent and precise drill holes that would be difficult to produce with today’s drills let alone whatever the Tiwanaku had back in their time.
Date: 10/05/2018 to 16/05/2018