22nd February 2015 – La Paz

La Paz is quite a bit lower than Potosi, 3,600 meters, so we are not feeling so tired or short of breath today. Plus we are probably starting to get used to being at a high altitude.  Our tour guide arrives at our hotel at 9am with a lovely coach to take us on our city tour. We head to the Valley of the Moon first, which is south of the city.  La Paz is built in a huge crater and is divided into north, south, east & west areas. As we drive to the south we pass magnificent houses and condominiums of wealthy people, these houses sell for in excess of US$1 million.   There is an extremely fast flowing river tumbling through the city which feeds into the Amazon.  When we arrive at the Valley of the Moon we are greeted by a very well dressed Bolivian Lady.  Her bowler hat is made from fine Italian wool and cost US$300. The Valley of the Moon is made from clay and was created by water, it’s quite fascinating.  There are some lovely cactus growing here. We next visit the lookout at the top of the city with magnificent views over the crater with skyscrapers and buildings not only on the base but also built up the sides of the crater. La Paz is serviced by 3 cable cars which are used for transportation from different areas into the centre of the city.  Our next visit is to the Gold museum where we see some very fine gold headdresses with turquoise adornments, ornaments & utensils from the Tiahuanacu people, which date back to 2,000BC.We next visit the Pedro D. Murillo main square which is full of pigeons and people feeding them.On one side of the square is the Basilica built by the Spanish. On another side of the square is the Presidential palace where the president works, not lives.On another side of the square is the building where the Bolivian parliament meets. The clock on the front of this building is backwards.We then visited the witches market with potions being sold, from herbal remedies to offerings to mother earth and just good luck items.We walked down the hill through the artisan market to the church of San Francisco which was built for the indigenous people to attend for worship, as they can place their offerings to mother earth here and pray that they will receive these items, which they can’t do in the church on the main square. This afternoon Michael did some maintenance on the car, the exhaust system took a bit of a beating yesterday driving into La Paz. They slow the traffic down with very aggressive speed humps.