It´s funny that I decided to name that previous entry "It could always be worse," because I thought to myself several times during my first day in La Paz, "Could this be worse?"

Since I didn´t wake up until the afternoon the previous day, I knew I´d have a problem getting to sleep the night before my flight. I ended up being up all night since my airport shuttle was picking me up a 4:45am. The flight was only 4 hours long, but there were 2 layovers baked into that 4 hours. So taking off and landing a total of 6 times wasn´t exactly fun for someone who doesn´t like flying in the first place.

La Paz is the highest capitol city in the world at an altitude of 3600 meters. It´s almost the same height that I slept at on the second night of Kilimanjaro. Except that instead of taking two days to walk there - pole pole, giving time to adjust to the altitude, I stepped off the pressurized airplane cabin directly into the thin air. I felt dizzy not long after I got off the plane, as were the people walking in front of me, they looked a bit wobbly on the jetway.

I decided to take a cab downtown, and was trying to negotiate a price with the drivers, when Renault, a Tahitian guy who was also trying to get into the city, suggested we share a cab. We were able to bargain him to 40 bolivianos for both of us, down from 45 just for one of us. (8 bolivianos = 1USD). Renault was going to the bus station and my hotel was just a bit further than the bus station so that seemed like it would work out well.

Driving into the city was chaos. There were cars, busses and people everywhere and nothing seemed to follow any kind of order or pattern. I was sure we were going to be hit, or hit something/someone several times along the way. When we got to the bus station, he told me that he couldn´t go any further down the road because it was too crowded. It was such a ridiculous thing to say considering the mess he had just navigated through, and that several cabs drove right down the road past us as he was saying he couldn´t. I tried to argue with him, but got no where so I got out and started walking.

Not 20 feet down the sidewalk a woman came up to me all concerned saying someone had thrown up on me. I felt something wet on the back of my leg and looked down and there was this bright yellow stuff all over the place. She was trying to wipe it up and pointed out that it was also on my backpack and my daypack. She was trying to direct me to the "bathroom," but when we got to the supossed bathroom door, it was locked, and it didn´t look like a bathroom anyway. She kept making these faces like it was soooo vile, but it looked and smelled like plain ´ol mustard to me. Although, I hate mustard, so it may as well have been vomit as far as I´m concerned. It all happened really quickly, and not sure why it took me as long as it did to figure it out, (maybe a combination of being tired and feeling sick from the altitude) but I realized I was being set up for a mugging. I read the "Dangers and Annoyances" section on La Paz in my Lonely Planet just the night before describing the exact scam. Someone spills something on you, and while they are helping you clean it up, someone else comes along and slashes open your bag or just takes it all together. When I figured out what was going on, I just stood up, thanked her for helping me, and quickly walked away. The more I thought about it, the more it seemed fishy:

It just didn´t make sense that someone could have "thrown up" on my backpack (Exhibit A), which was on my back, and on the back of my leg (Exhibit B), and then walk around and puke on my daypack (Exhibit C), which I was wearing on my front. Especially without me noticing. Also, who throws up pure yellow mustard without there being chunks of something else in it. Sorry to be graphic, but its true!! :)

When I finally got to the Hotel Senorial Montera, checked in and went up to my room. I noted the chaos happening in the street below and had a little rest. I decided to take a walk down the street. As I walked out of the hotel, there was a demonstration going past. It happened to be the one year anniversary of a protest against the sale of natural gas to the U.S. The Bolivian people revolted against the President Sanchez de Lozada and it resulted in a massive riot where almost 70 people ended up getting killed. In the end, Lozada resigned from his Presidency and fled to the U.S. It seemed to be a peaceful demonstration, despite the random fireworks that startled me whenever they went off, but I didn´t venture too far from the hotel just in case.

When I got back, I met a British girl in the lobby, Vaila. She happens to also be on my three week trip to the Amazon and Peru which leaves on monday. She was a bit put off by the fireworks and the demonstrators as well but we decided to venture out together. We walked around some of the markets, checking out some of the normal stuff you find at markets (figurines, carvings, weavings) and some of the NOT normal stuff - like these dried llama fetuses. It is considered good luck to bury a llama underneath the foundation of your house. The wealthy people will sacrifice an adult llama, but the poorer people will buy the fetuses for 20 bolivianos (about $2.50 USD) and bury them instead. Nasty.

We stopped for a bite to eat and then went to the Coca museum. It described the history of the coca plant and how it is used in cocaine, the pharmacutical industry, and how it used to be used in Coca Cola. An interesting visit, but I had a hard time concentrating because I was pretty tired. We also tried chewing some coca leaves, which turned out to be pretty disgusting...

I was trying to keep myself awake until at least 10 pm so that I wouldn´t sleep until evening and then be up all night, but I ended up being awake all night anyway because I felt nautious and had a headache from the altitude.