La Paz – amusemusings

By the time I hit La Paz, I was ready for a big city. I’m a Chicago girl & I LOVE me a big city so I was super excited to wander, explore, chill in cafes & enjoy some good food. I was most excited about having no plan. Between wine tours, sand surfing, vomit-inducing flights, Machu Picchu, Rainbow Mountain & Isla del Sol… I’ve kept awfully busy touring my time away. So having nothing on the agenda was exactly what I needed. La Paz delivered in full. It’s stunningly located in a sprawling valley surrounded by mountains & features a charming old city feel with new city spoils.

The city, at 3500m, it situated in a canyon surrounded by mountain peaks.

Mountains mountains everywhere. The only way to gain perspective on how big the city is & for the best mountain views, hop on the dope new telefericos. The city is still adding lines so they don’t all get connect but it’ll be soon.

One of the main city squares always jammed w people. It’s bisected by the massive main thoroughfare, El Prado.

During the La Paz visit, we were lucky enough to witness the fiery spirit of Bolivians as rural coca farmers staged protests of new laws increasing competition by shutting down the massive main thoroughfare El Prado. For the most part it was a quiet seated peaceful protest but for the occasional fireworks. The resulting traffic was gridlocked but as we were strictly pedestrians wandering the city, it didn’t impact us. I rather enjoyed walking down the middle of the street with no cares.

We visited the coca museum (duh) & afterwards sampled some beverages from the coca museum’s bar. The “original recipe” for Coca Cola featured cocaine but I’m almost positive the drink just included a shitload of coca. And also coca beer cuz why not? They were both delicious.

Massive Sunday markets. These tented stalls scattered in every direction for blocks & blocks.

The tented stalls sold everything from unattractive oddly fitting & unflattering length skirts that every local woman wears (like above) to auto parts, school supplies, etc. You name it, they had it.

The market also featured this odd little building housing witches. Each door was a separate witch’s lair / witch’s haven (?!?! I’m not up on my witch lingo!) where you can have your fortune read & other good stuff. You know if they’re open for business if there’s a fire burning outside. It seemed like a slow day for the witches as there wasn’t much activity but we finally found a fire (which was a little disturbing… something may have previously been alive). So we knocked to see if they were available, but there was someone ill inside (& it was really creepy) so we moved along. Perhaps it’s more of a night thing?

So instead we went to this way more accessible witch hangout as there’s this little street known as “Mercado de hechiceria” – or witches’ market. So we found a stall we liked & disappeared inside to wander around. There’s weird shrunken llama heads & a random assortment of remedies, potions, herbs, etc. it’s so cool.

At first I intended to ask for a remedy for my horrendous cough. Then after snooping around a bit, I thought better. Instead I gave the witch a problem to solve – that didn’t involve me ingesting weird things – attracting a man. Bwah haha. Somehow I said it with a straight face cuz I need a guy just about as much as I need a hole in my head but boy did she go to work. She sorted through her stash to offer me several items. It was so much fun so I ended up buying this crap to show her my appreciation. It included a couple potions (or essential oils I typically use as perfume) & a tiny gold amulet (which seemed to be a couple amorously embracing) wrapped with neon pink died llama hair for good luck.

You can find help for your colon right next to some sort of bedroom performance enhancement.

We sought out the best resto in La Paz & enjoyed a fabulous tasting menu. The resto is Gustu, the sister resto of Noma, the Copenhagen resto consistently ranked as world’s best. So obviously the Dane joined us & was super excited. Quite possibly my fave part of the whole experience was the cocktail I started (& ended) with. Gin (what else!?!), cucumber & smoked rosemary (that you smell after unscrewing the capped jar & then pour the gin & cucumber mix on the smokey ice). The name? A Fucking Cocktail. And yes, I REALLY enjoyed ordering it.

The mix. Maybe one of my other fave parts of the resto visit, again besides the food? I’m pretty sure a famous boy band was eating there at the chefs table & then having drinks after while we lingered. They kinda looked the type – you know, boyishly handsome. Not many young guys splurge on a fancy dinner like that. People – patrons & the staff – were making quite a bit of fuss. But I don’t have a fucking clue. I’m not up on my boy bands. All I know is the staff gave us free drinks after dinner so they weren’t the only fun group dining that night.

Lake Titicaca is this gorgeous sapphire blue lake that borders on both Peru & Bolivia & is easily the largest high-altitude body of water in the world. It’s also very sacred Incan land as they believe the sun & the moon were created on Isla Del Sol. Copacabana is the Bolivian town on Lake Titicaca closest to Isla Del Sol & the best spot to explore the lake on the Bolivian side. In general I’d heard the Bolivian side was more charming & less touristy & I specifically read Copacabana was much more alluring with better ambience than its Peruvian counterpart, Puno. So we cruised right through Puno on the way to the Peru-Bolivia land border crossing to access Copacabana & Isla Del Sol, which was certainly the highlight of the Lake Titicaca trip.
As a quick aside… I was a tad nervous hitting the border crossing. If you heed the US State Department’s advice, you MUST have a visa prior to entering Bolivia. I looked into this prior to the trip but it was going to take 2 months & that was time I didn’t have (yes, I’m still a procrastinator). So I did some online research to find that before the rule changed (US citizens apparently used to be able to get visas upon arrival to Bolivia but that changed in 2015), plenty of folks got in just fine. For the life of me, I couldn’t find a single example of someone who successfully crossed after the rule change. So we were rolling the dice a bit. But I wasn’t that worried as I was convinced all they cared about was us paying the $160 visa fee which is a reciprocal fee to what the US charges Bolivian citizens to visit (no one else needs a visa, only Americans bc our government makes it really difficult for foreigners to visit so some countries choose to do the same to US tourists; can’t blame them really). I was (fairly) certain they wouldn’t turn away tourists who not only want to visit their country & spend money but also are willing to pay a hefty sum to enter. So turns out I was right. We gave them some of the documents “required”, didn’t provide them with others (proof of exiting country, hotel res) but they didn’t seem to give a shit. They cared most about closely inspecting those US bills in exchange for a 10yr visa (woot woot!). Thankfully so bc that really would’ve sucked to be rejected at the Bolivian border… or just another adventure.