La Paz – Take 1

Day 122 – Adventure Brew!

Arriving early in the morning at our hostel, ‘Adventure Brew Hostel’ (how could I resist a name like that), we found a modern clean looking building with rooftop bar and a microbrewery next door. However, as ABH was full we were redirected down the road to ‘Brew Too’ a near derelict building with a certain rustic charm. The rooms were big and clean though and the showers the best in ages.

The ‘courtyard’ at Brew Too.

We were especially pleased to hear that panpipe music was forbidden.

After a delicious pancake breakfast at the hostel we set out to explore La Paz on foot. Geography buffs will know that La Paz is the world’s highest capital city (though it shares capital status with Sucre). When planes land at the city’s aptly named Aeropuerto El Alto (The Heights Airport) the cabin pressure drops when they depressurise the cabin, meaning some passengers suffer from altitude sickness walking between the plane and the terminal. So between the altitude and the smog, our walk was a breathless one!

We’d been warned by multiple parties that getting to and from our next major destination (the Amazon jungle town of Rurrenabaque) could be difficult. Opting to avoid the 20 hour bus ride, including a 70km stretch along “the world’s most dangerous road”, we’d booked tickets for the next day to fly 40 minutes on a diminutive airplane to Rurre’s grassy airstrip. The catch was that the plane can’t land in Rurre if it’s been raining heavily, not an infrequent occurrence in the jungle. So we booked a flight for the next day deciding we could do any of the attractions we missed in La Paz this time around on our return .

The most rewarding part of the walk was probably the glimpses of the suburbs climbing into the rarefied air around central La Paz.

After a dirt cheap Chinese set menu for lunch we headed for the Coca Museum, where in about 20 panels of photos and information we learnt all you might want to know about Coca, Coca Cola and Cocaine, including the interesting tid bit that the Coca Cola company still buys tonnes of coca each year for ‘flavouring’!

On the way to the Coca Museum we walked past San Pedro Prison, made famous by the book Marching Powder. A few years ago it was popular to do ‘tours’ of the prison where a guide (from the inside) bribes guards to get you in and then pays for your protection to get you through. The prisoners must buy or rent their cells, many ‘work’ inside to make the required money, often running crude cocaine laboratories. ‘Tours’ are much harder to organise now, generally requiring you to contact someone with a relative inside and arrange a visit as a ‘friend.’

For dinner we hit the ‘British Curry House’ and had our first decent curry since leaving Australia!