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| GENERAL |
Program/company I traveled with:
As part of a 5-month backpacking trek through South & Central Americas. |
Travel Information:
Lonely Planet, but we found the information to be really bad so we looked at Rough Guide & Footprints |
Live or Visit
visit - As part of a 5-month backpacking trek through South & Central Americas. |
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| HIGHLIGHTS |
Major Activity:
|
One thing you cannot miss:
Coming into La Paz from the ridge line in El Alto |
One thing you should avoid:
Hanging out in El Alto |
I wish someone had told me:
La Paz is built at 3500-4000 meters high. We had come from a few days at high altitude, but if you fly into La Paz from sea level it will probably knock you out for a few days. |
Fun Fact:
The indigenous women wear a English bowler hat. Back when they were in fashion for men, an English guy imported them to La Paz. The men were not interested so he said they were the fashionable things for British women...well they were picked up by the local women and to this day they still wear them. The way they position the hat depends on if they are married or single. |
Suggested visiting time:
1 week |
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| ACTIVITIES |
Next time:
I never do this, but we took an organized BUS TOUR around La Paz. It was so vast that we couldn't get situated. Well worth taking. They tend to keep you in the uber-rich parts of town. We also hired a taxi to take us up to El Alto for photos of La Paz. It was a breath-taking incredible view, but NOT SAFE. We met travelers that had been mugged by taxi drivers. The local markets are excellent to walk around. Each street had a different specialty. There is also Black Market, Wiches Market, Cloth Market. All worth seeing. |
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| SHOPPING |
To buy:
woven goods - personally, I liked the woven blankets & shalls in La Paz more then the ones in Peru. |
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| ACCOMODATION |
Hotels/hostels/accom:
MAYA on Calle Sagarnaga. Right by the Downhill Madness office. It was fine accomodation for a hostel, but our first night there was a huge Pena band concert and it was so loud that we thought we were on the stage. Otherwise, it was clean private room, shared bath, internet access and most important safe and central. Also, try HOTEL ROSARIO (reservas@hotelrosario.com) we had a mate stay there and it looked very very nice. Much pricer then ours. |
Part of town to stay:
Right where we stayed...we walked to everything. |
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| FOOD |
Retaurant/local dives/markets:
There were actually many options. But we had a few good meals at Yussef's on Calle Sagarnaga N380, 1st piso. Middle Eastern which was a nice change. La Mia Pizza - cheap beer and pizza. Big Israeli hangout. |
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| NIGHTLIFE |
Local Activity/Cultural Experience:
Well, I do NOT recommend Pena bands. South America is plagued with them. |
At night:
There are some great expat bars. I recommend having a few relaxing drinks with the other travelers. |
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| GETTING AROUND |
Local transport:
we walked everywhere. We hopped the bus a few times when our feet were about to fall off. It's very hilly. |
My Route:
We got to La Paz on the WORST journey ever - we took an overnight train from Uyuni. It was scheduled to leave at 1am, arrived at 2:30am and left at like 4am. (I was very delirious by then). We got to Oruro around 11am and changed to a bus. It was 4 more hours to La Paz. The first view of the city made it well worth it. |
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| SAFETY |
Safety Tips:
You need to be street smart. |
Local Scams:
We heard that some taxi drivers were driving their passengers to El Alto to be mugged. |
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| OTHER TRAVELERS |
There are tons of travelers in the part of town we stayed in. In fact, we heard for Passover there were 400 Israeli's in attendance. |
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