Crazy La Paz

After spending 12 hours rattling all the way to La Paz on a ´luxury´Bolivian coach we arrived at La Paz - a crazy, bustling town with hundreds of people milling around. As you first reach the edges of La Paz, you come across a huge area where most of the poor live. It´s not quite a shanti town, but still fairly rough around the edges. This stops at the edge of a huge cliff that looks down into a valley where the main city sits. The buildings are clambering up the edges of this cliff as the city seems to burst out of the valley in which it sits. Quite a site first thing in the morning.

As we made our way to the hostel, there were young boys everywhere - sitting begging for you to get your shoes cleaned or hanging out of minibus windows shouting the destination of the bus, just in case you can´t you read the signs on the front of the windscreen. That was half said with sarcasm, then I realised that 80% of La Paz´s population live below the poverty line, so it´s probably a credible job the boys do.

We´re not staying long as we get a plane to the jungle in a couple of hours. This part of the trip is going to be one of my key highlights and thankfully it will be warm. (It´s been freezing as we´ve been at altitude for so long - so it will be nice to have some hot sun).