Lost in La Paz
It was quite sad to be leaving the Hostal de Su Merced in Sucre. In protest, Eugene`s chest was intent on spewing up the filtered debris from Potosi and my guts decided to remind me I was travelling in a very foreign country! Nevertheless, we headed back to Sucre airport and waited patiently for our flight back to La Paz.
We flew back to La Paz, via Cochabamba. What a cool airport and so massive compared to Sucre and La Paz. Again, landing there and taking off was a bizarre experience as the whole city was surrounded by huge mountains. It felt as though you could reach down and touch them.
The taxi jouney into La Paz was certainly interesting. The road takes a big drop down into the “valley” where La Paz resides. And the dirty polluting vehicle fumes were back. How can people survive with such rank air? The taxi driver didn`t say much but also didn`t seem entirely sure where the Hotel Rosario was. As we got further into the city, the traffic got worse and most of the time we were at a complete standstill. Mr Taxi Driver blamed the holiday season. We were frantically searching the Rough Guide and Lonely Planet for the address for the Hotel Rosario. Damn – they gave conflicting information. We checked our confirmation print-out but there was no address. Then Eugene had the idea of playing top trumps with the phone number – and it matched with the Lonely Planet address. I think Mr Taxi Driver was getting a bit cheesed off with us at this point.
Eventually we came to the road with Hotel Rosario sitting on it. Finally! But the road was impassable as the holiday market had taken over the street making it pedestrian only. Eugene attempted to run up the street with Mr Taxi Driver, coughing and spluttering. They both came back confirming that the hotel was there. So now, we were on foot with all our luggage. It was´t far but the thin air made it feel like miles.
Settled in and both feeling rough, we had a fairly sleepless night. We couldn`t even manage a beer! Both rattling full of paracetamol, immodium and flu tablets, it was time to escape La Paz.
Tags: Bolivia at last!
mihai