"BIENVENIDO A BOLIVIA"! ...1st Stop La Paz

Our first border crossing - not as chaotic at all as we had imagined.

We soon arrived at the Bolivian side of Lake Titicaca - Copacabana. The sun was shining, it seemed more picturesque than Puno, and they had obviously tried so hard to make this a great tourist destination. Still, we couldn't help but get the feeling from the place that it served, for the most part, solely as a border hop town where the many buses from Puno handed over their passengers - both tourists and locals - to their Bolivian counterparts.

The dis-organisation, synonymous with Bolivia, began about an hour after leaving Copacabana. The driver's assistant opened the partition door as we pulled into a small village and said "You must pay 1 Boliviano at ticket office for ferry". As we were walking to the office by the pier we spot our bus driving onto a so called "ferry" .......the photo says it all:

So he herded us all onto a tiny, wooden, old, taxi boat - with more people than seats & life jackets!! It certainly wasn't the safest way any of us had travelled but we all had a great (somewhat delirious) laugh while we crossed our fingers hoping to get to the other side safely.

LA PAZ was some sight as we entered from the outer edge of town, 'El Alto'. The city sits in a "bowl" at 3,650m and is so vast as you enter from the highest part of the bowl that you can barely see where it ends!

As we spiral down to the city's centre the place immediately becomes the chaotic frantic scene - just as we had imagined it to be - streets full with traffic all beeping horns, no vehicle following any kind of road rules or system in particular; huge piles of stinking rubbish pushed aside in a heap by the cities cleaners; locals set up with their stalls anywhere they can find a space trying to sell everything and anything...from fruit juice to ice creams to toiletries and meat! We also noticed the type of dress for women had changed from that of Peru. Both young and old all wear below the knee velvet skirts, knee high woolen socks, wool jackets, and the traditional Bolivian bowler hats - under which they always have their long jet black hair done in 2 neat plaits.

After eventually flagging down a taxi whilst trying not to get run over - with one taxi driver almost driving over my foot because I tried to haggle the price (as you do in South America!), we got to our hostel in Sopacachi and headed out for dinner. It was just about dark out, but we walked since the owner of the hostel assured us we were in the "good part of town" and it was perfectly safe. Still, we ended up getting a taxi after walking for just a few minutes - not the nicest part of the world for a night time stroll we thought!

We were glad to be leaving the next morning - even though we hadn't spent much time in the place we had developed a bad feel for La Paz (Ironically which means "Our Lady of Peace"): The smog that catches your throat as you walk down the street; the chaotic driving meaning for pedestrians one wrong step and 'you're out'; the seemingly unhappy and unfriendly faces, the piles of rubbish on almost every street with dogs and people rummaging through for scraps; the feeling of constantly having to watch your back (and your pockets); the general manic busyness of the place. Maybe we're just too 'country' - used to growing up in and living in small towns and villages, but its just not our type of place - as we soon found other travellers we met along the way felt too.

 Next stop - The airport (which soon became a regular and favorite place of ours in La Paz!! ...Long story!)