Bolivia!

As I mentioned in my last post, I decided to visit a friend in Bolivia for Thanksgiving.  I was a little nervous about travelling all on my own, especially since my Spanish is still quite basico and my travel route would include several points of negotiations.  Of course, the easiest way would be fly directly from Lima to La Paz, but unfortunately the price, which seemed to be more apropos to flying across all of South America instead of to the capital of the neighboring country, prevented that from being a viable option. Instead, I opted to fly to Juliaca, then take a bus that would cross the border and end up in La Paz.  In addition to feeling nervous about being able to communicate, I was also worried because I had very little leeway in my travel time in order to make to my friend's house before dinner.

Luckily, I worried for nothing.  The communication went as smoothly as it could have, despite the fact that, instead of a bus that would take me directly to La Paz, I ended up taking a series of taxis and collectivos (shared taxis, where you wait until the car fills up).  [Shh...don't tell my students, they'll say it's unsafe!]  The only snag was at the border crossing into Bolivia.  Not only do they charge Americans for a visa (unlike most of the other countries in South America) as a reciprocity fee, but they also seem to enjoy making them run back and forth between various service windows to complete the process.  But, this was merely annoying, I eventually jumped through enough hoops and was allowed to continue my journey.  I even made it on time for dinner!

I spent the majority of time in La Paz catching up with my friend and getting to know his fiancee, but we did manage to go out and see a bit of the city:

One landmark of La Paz-La Muela del Diablo (the Devil's Molar)
Maybe some day I'll be crazy enough to try hiking it!

In addition to being at a higher altitude than Lima, La Paz also has a different feel from being situated in a valley, rather than sprawling along a coast.  But crazy traffic remains a problem for both cities.  In an attempt to alleviate some traffic congestion, La Paz has recently installed 3 teleférico (cable car) lines.

They took me to test out the yellow line

Julia & Ralph

View from the station

They also took me to El Mercado de las Brujas, or Witches' Market and explained that once a year there is a ceremony where you buy symbols for things that you want to happen to you (new car, baby, house, husband, etc.) and place them in a basket as an offering.

Though La Paz shares a lot of cultural similarities with the mountain region of Peru,
I love the bowler hats that the women in La Paz wear!