La Paz

It's 2:30 pm and I am in hostal el Solario in La Paz. There's a huge thunderstorm and I can hear the heavy rain falling on the glass roof. I got to La Paz yesterday. Early morning on 31 March I took a collectivo (did I ever explain what collectivos are? They are minibuses which leave to their destinations when they get full) to Yunguyo. From Yunguyo it's 1km to the border with Bolivia. I was ready to walk but as I got off the bus a man asked if I would like to use his riksha. So I hopped on. After a slow ride, and passing a beautiful scenery, we got to the border which was a few stores on the Peruvian and Bolivian side and two small immigration buildings. It turned out I exceeded my visa by three days and had to pay a $5 fine but the immigration officer told me not to worry when I come back, "Just ask for a 90-day visa next time." In the building of the Bolivian immigration office I met a group of Polish tourists (Pozdrawiam wszystkich serdecznie!) and it was the first time I met anyone from Poland since I met the few persons in Lima. It was a very nice meeting and there were only us, no other tuourists! A very quiet border... I got into conversation with the bathroom cleaner, a very nice man, and he asked me if I am going to go to the Isla del Sol. He said it was very nice and I said, yes, I will go, on your recommendation. I got to Copacabana, a small town on the Bolivian shore of Lake Titicaca and it turned out the boat to the Island of the Sun was leaving in 20 minutes. I immediately got a ticket and on my way to the boat I met Batia, a girl from Israel who completed her service in the Israeli army and is taking a 5-month vacation in South America. We boarded the chicken boat full of people, bags with food, toilet paper and bricks. We got to the island and had to climb 1 hour up to the peak where all the hostels were located. We were completely dead and out of breath when we got into our room. On our way we met many donkeys and I want to say that I am very much in love with them. Of all the hooved animals I think donkeys are the most gentle, intelligent, patient, brave ones and they have a great sense of humor. We saw a few of them playing like dogs. It was an amazing sight. They were playing tricks on each other: hiding, playing tag, tugging on the blankets on their backs... When the sheep where coming down, while we were going up, they would see us and run into all uncomfortable directions to avoid us, in panic. The donkeys walked the best way (the way up is like Inca trail, many steps) and when they saw us they would either wait for us to pass, passe Senioritas!, or we would step aside and they would go first. No panic, high manners. If I ever have the means to own a hooved animal I would like to have a donkey. After we recovered from the long climb we looked for a restaurant and there were a few family-run places, all on the very top of the mountain with beautiful views of the Peruvian and Bolivian side of the lake. We met Ladislaw from Slovakia and Marco from Tasmania, who also met on the boat, and they told us about the beautiful trail to the north of the island. We went to bed early because it was totally dark on the island, and cold. The next morning Batia left at 10 am to catch a boat back and I decided to go on the 10km trail from south to north of the island where, as Marco and Ladislaw told us, some nice Inca ruins were located. I was completely alone on the trail. I only met one indigenous woman on my way and told her how beautiful the scenery was. She asked me where I got my hat (a white alpaca Inca hat I got in Amantani). I pointed to the other shore of the lake. "Different country?" she asked. "Yes." Isla del Sol is a universe in its own - the only place people need to go is Copacabana to get what they can't produce on their own. The buildings look like the ones in a well to do Polish village, except there's no farming machinery of any kind. The land is plowed by men with oxen. I don't know if any machinery on these steep slopes would be useful. Village life is concentrated on the north and south ends of the island. I walked through its middle and the scenery was changing from lush green to desert-like peaks. There are many eucaliptus trees in Peru in Bolivia, brought from Australia some time ago, and there were many along the walk - I was walking in a very fragrant and thin air. I got to the ruins which were very ruined, only remains really of what looked like a two-story high palace of some kind, but beautiful and beautifully located. I spent some time there, enjoying this beauty, the beach below, and the distant shores of Lake Titicaca. I went to the south shore port and got on the boat which took me to the north but it was too late to make the last boat going back to Copacabana so I stayed another night on the Island. Yesterday morning I got on the boat and then after a short walk around Copacabana I got on the bus to La Paz. On the bus I met Krzysztof, who is Polish but has lived in England for four years, and his girlfiend Zoe. We got to La Paz at 5 pm. On our way I observed the scenery of Bolivia and it does look like the poorest country of South America - that's what the guidebook said. La Paz also looks very run down. It looks like a city in disintegration, like something that was built without any particular plan, or half built and never finished... It's smell is also the smell of decay. It's hard to describe it. It's the strangest city I have seen so far. The commerce takes place on the street - everything is sold there. Women cook food on the street so restaurants are on the sidewalks. The small center is in the valley and all around are shantytowns. The air is heavily polluted, the buildings look very abandoned, there's a lot of garbage on the streets. You may think that people are utterly misirable living here but I talked to some poeple selling various things and they were all asking me "Do you like our city? Isn't it beautiful?" Again, it prooves that what may be unbearable for people raised in a certain culture is totally fine, and even beautiful, to the people raised in this culture. I walked around the city, visited the San Franciso Church (very beautiful as all other churches dedicated to St. Francisco except the only lighting is the flourescent long bulbs like the ones used for offices in the western world), the Cathedral, the main square Murillo, and the esoteric market (with mumified baby lamas and all kinds of strange potions and amulets) and I am totally wasted because it's always climbing up steep streets. At 7 pm I am taking a bus to lowlands, to Santa Cruz because I have to rest somewhere from the high altitude.