Leaving Copacabana we were jumping on a bus. Unlike the bus journeys we were used it was a free for all with bags. There was no one to label your bag and load it for you, it was just chuck it on there. With the storage compartment already pretty full, I put my bag on the floor and did some shrewd rearranging which took a good few minutes. Upon successfully making a space I turned to pick up my bag and before I could hoist it up there some rat of a girl had quickly put her bag there even though she had just watched me struggling. It was like those annoying chaps who sneak into a car park space when you have been waiting on the other side with your indicater on waiting for the car to come out. Cheeky rat girl is all I could describe her as but I wasn't in the mood for arguing so I just spent another few minutes making some more room and got my back up there. After all that the bus driver dude came out and upon realising it was pretty crowded in there he opening another compartment which Jen could just place her bag in with no worries! Annoying.
Just before getting to La Paz we could get a pretty cool shot of the enormity of the place. It's all build in, on and amongst hills with the wealthiest getting to be higher up the hills.
From the bus station we struggled to work out which direction to walk in, but a usful chap told us where our road is so we got there pretty easily. Our hostel turned out to be pretty cool, having it's own brewery which allowed you to have a free beer each night you stayed there. Result. Furthermore they did some bad ass brownies, super tasty (and no, not that type of brownie!).
It was time for a look around as we had heard that La Paz was the place to go shopping. But first thing was first, time to get the visas sorted out. After working out where the main square was we looked up to see a massive building which was the hotel presidente. It dominated the area and rooms there cost 140 US dollars per night. A bit of a price shock compared to the 2 quid hostel rooms we were getting in some poorer Bolivian countries. But we weren't interested in the hotel for that reason, it was more entertaining for its 50ft vertical wall of which people dressed up in spiderman outfits and forward abseiled down. Pretty crazy stuff, we sat there and watched for a while, about having a heart attack when the spiderman just free fell, but it was all part of the action, you could free fall for 20ft if you chose to.
Back to the mission at hand we found the embassy and waited for quite some time to be seen at the extension offices. Finally getting in there I had practiced my Spanish as to what to say regarding the visa only for me to struggle away and him to reply in perfect English. Could have interupted me there fella. But it was dead easy, he nulified the date stamped on our passport and gave us 90 days, not that we'd need that much but who cares!
With that sorted it was shopping time so we got back to what we came for. The streets were pretty sureal around La Paz, there was obviously a more build up newer area with modern shops but we were more interested in the older area, where you bought goods from markets. Besides, I think you'll have a hard time buying lama fetus's in a modern shop. But that's exactly what you could do from these streets, in an area known as the witches market due to the other bizarre things you could buy here such as ancient potions, alternatives for modern medicines.
After being asked by a certain Manc back home to bring him back a Sergio Aguero Argentina shirt, I told him there was no chance after looking in Buenos Aires and finding them for 90 quid. However, that was Argentina......and I was able to pick one up in Peru. La Paz seemed to have a street for everything from a street full of shops selling pipes and bathroom goods, to a street for handbags, to a street to alpaca goods to the all important street below which had about 20 shops all selling fake football shirts. Now not many people want fake football shirts, but you do when they are literal perfect copies of the originals, with the brand stitched in, the logos printed on, the names and numbers in the official style so of course it was football shirt shopping time much to Jen's dismay. After picking up 3 football shirts on my travels already I purchased a Bolivian pink shirt (which is bad ass).
But anyway, I was super happy at the time as I had bought the shirts on the cheap and having purchased that Manc his Aguero shirt back in Lima, I felt that I had to buy his Manc twin a South America shirt who also played for their beloved Man city. With the Manc giants injected with millions of UAE money, I was sure that they were going to buy either the Uruguayan Cavani or Columbian Falcao in the summer transfer window, and was also confident that the Argentinian Tevez would be on his way. So ignoring Tevez I picked up the other two confident one would be a city player. I'd later find out that both would disappear to PSG and Monaco respectively so I spent the next four days in La Paz trying to find a Zabaleta shirt to no avail. Dragging poor Jen along with me for a good 3 hours a day she had enough and that was the end of my football shirt shopping.
It was time for Jen's way, and onto the alpaca, handbag, shoes, scarfs and shirts streets, although I benefited from those shops also buying enough souvenirs to take up literally half the room in my 65 litre backpack, I don't know how we managed to squidge it in but we did, with a few items of clothing taking the hit like my worn out hoodie.
There literally were thousands of similar goods all across these streets, impossible for the indecisive Jenna to choose what she wanted, but we did have four days to make our choices.
A bit all shopped out, and with the knowledge we would be leaving the next day to the Bolivian jungle we decided to go on a free tour of La Paz. Being called redcap tours we were told to meet in a square near a prison. Sitting down on a bench we began scanning for someone with a red cap who looked like a tour guide. Spotting a few shady characters in almost red caps we dared each other to go and ask them but we didn't really fancy it being outside a prison so we just sat there and waited as it seemed other tourists were hanging around too. Finally a dude came up to us and asked if we were waiting for the tour, so we said yes. Then with a smile on his face he unzipped his jacket to reveal the red cap tour logo on his shirt and calmly explained that they had lost their actual red caps. Pretty stupid way of intentifying yourselves if you can't even go to the hundreds of shops on the markets that sell red caps for about 50p!
Anyway we'd made it and were with the tour group and the guy began to explain about what it probably the most bizarre prison in the world, not that the picture below would make you think that. If anyone has ever seen prison break season 3, it is pretty much like the Sona prison in Panama, which is ran by the inmates themselves. Now it sounds like I might be exeragerating but that is literally what happens here in the San Pedro prison, La Paz. Not only is it ran by the inmates, but they also have their entire families in there with them, including their children who are let out daily and go to a school outside the confinements of the prison walls. There's a lot of criminal acitivity going on inside the walls, including drugs and sending word to outside accomplices to steal cars and demand ransom for their returns. There's a hierachy with the topdogs giving out orders for stabbings which is sadly quite common practice.
There's a really interesting book by Rusty Young called "Marching Powder" which is the story of a British person, Thomas McFadden, incarcerated for drug related offences for five years. He became infamous for giving backpacker tours around the prison which is now banned due to a German fella being stabbed by one of the inmates.
Off to a more happy area back in the main area of the town where there were zebras who helped people across the busy roads when the lights changed. With drivers here a little mental, it was good that they were there to help you across the zebra crossings and also provided a bit of entertainment.
About half way through the tour another guide came running down the street and joined us as he'd just finished the morning tour (we were the afternoon one). I only mention this as the guy was a local but he had somehow managed to adopt the campest British accent ever, which made us all chuckle. He also told us about the Cholitas here who were the traditionally dressed woman. At one point I asked about Cholita wrestling which is a real thing here and you can pay to go watch it, but he responding by saying the Cholitas in the markets were way more brutal and you should stick around to see a real fight between some of them! These ladies are pretty hefty as they carry loads of goods around on their bags and apparently they sometimes knock each other out. Sadly never saw it though!
We did however end the tour by getting an elevator to the top of the hotel presidente and getting a view out of the city, you could even see the bit where nutters started their descent out the building in their spiderman outfit, but unfortunately there was no one doing it to watch when we were there. The view was good though so was worth it all the same.
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