La Paz times

We showed up in La Paz with 2 nights booked at LOKI, our favorite hostel chain, and planned on then doing 1 night of couchsurfing before continuing on in Bolivia. Somehow, 2 nights at LOKI turned into 6 nights, but we've bought our bus tickets so we're leaving tomorrow, theres no turning back.

Here's how it happened: we made friends! The hostel is huge, just as the LOKI in Cusco was...theres room for more than 100 guests and there's a very active bar and restaurant inside that trickily lets you charge to your room so you just don't know what you're spending. Of course, we started friendless in the new city, per usual. We walked into the bar on our first night and ordered 2 diet cokes, were accused of being too wild by the bartender, and then were too tired to make the effort to make friends in the overwhelmingly Aussie crowd. We walked into our 5 person dorm room and the other 3 people were already sleeping, at 1030 at night, so we thought it best to turn in and weather out the snores coming from the bunkbed in the corner.

Our luck changed when we heard Zara (our Australian friend who we met in BA and stayed with in Cusco) was coming to work at LOKI. So that friend was locked in. As we sat catching up with her in the bar, my attention was caught by a guy walking into the room, and would you believe it? It was one of the stupid American boys who were on our bus from Puno and had their passports confiscated at the border. I looked up at him and shouted, "You made it!", which he was taken aback by but then recognized us. We then proceeded to spend the entire afternoon with this guy who was not at all the asshole we expected, but really quite the conversationalist.

The 3 of us decided to go to the Oxygen Bar in the hostel, pretty much as a joke...but I mean, how many people can really say they've been to the world's highest oxygen bar? We were breaking records. This is where we met our next friend, Kevin, another American traveler finding himself on the southern continent. Kevin decides that Indian food sounds like a good idea, so we do somemore record-breaking by going to the world's highest Indian restaurant (there's a lot of this type of record-breaking in the world's highest city). It was way better than Argentine Indian food because it was actually spicy. I ordered llama tikka masala, because it seemed like a one-time opportunity (llama is not the most flavorful meat, I wouldn't necessarily recommend it). That night we hung out with some random guys, who turned out to be a bit too crazy for us. The final straw was when they couldn't understand how to play the card game BS, their minds were to feeble I think.

The next day we went with our new, large group of friends to the coca museum. Which is not that exciting, but mildly interesting. We walked around the street markets and saw the city, which is like San Fransisco in terms of its topography (but not so much in terms of architecture). Women here wander around in the traditional clothing, with odd hats that seem to be a combination of a top and a bowler hat and traditionally bright rainbow shawls. In the market, they sell llama fetuses and snake skins for potions and spells. I was just surprised by how big a llama fetus is (it's like a cat with a long neck).

In the following days we saw various museums and tourist sights. On one of the pedestrian streets, a boy of about 5 years came running at us with his penis hanging over the top of his pants. That was right by Plaza Murillo, which is a beautiful yellow colonial plaza with all too many pigeons. We went to one museum that started with a display of carnaval costumes, then went to rooms with miniature dolls portraying battle, market, and cantina scenes, then a room with military weapons, then came the under the sea room. What? You know, just sharks and deep sea fish models hanging in a net in a tiny room, then onto the ancient Incan gold and silver pieces. Their museum curation seems a bit out of whack. Another museum we went to had a really interesting exhibit on the traditional masks used during carnaval. I didn't realize how devoted Bolivia was to its traditional dances, but there are some that are only danced in very specific regions to this day. It was also fascinating to note how Asian they looked and to think of the influence of that culture from thousands of years ago. Thank you, Bearing Straight.

We've also been taking in the nightlife of La Paz. A typical night starts at LOKI, where we converse with a variety of people, then the crowd moves to a bar or club. The best was when we went to Mongo's, which was empty when we arrived but we quickly changed that thanks to requesting some Sexy Back and Maneater. We all danced for hours, despite not having nearly enough oxygen. Tonight we hope to repeat this feat and go out of La Paz with a bang.