After leaving Santiago at 4.30am, our flight was one of those stop-starters that was like being on a roller coaster… the plane made two stops before the last leg to La Paz… we both looked a bit concerned when more than half the passengers departed at Arica the most northerly town in Chile.

After some sensational views of the snow capped mountains and the rugged Altiplano we landed and our next difficulty was the altitude!!

We felt that we were both prepared for the dizzying heights of La Paz, at over 3500 meters above sea level, the highest city in the world, but it certainly took the wind out of me!!!

After the unexpected ease in getting our passport stamps, Lynsey seemed to be ok, but I was absolutely knackered after walking about three yards to get our backpacks. I was especially embarrassed when a smartly dressed veteran Bolivian strolled passed me and retrieved his suitcase, while I was reaching for the zimmer-frame!!

We had also decided to shrink-wrap our packs (after hearing some more dodgy stories) and sorely regretted it after taking ages to release them from their plastic straightjackets!

The taxi ride to the city was very memorable too with a stop at the Mirador, affording views over the whole of La Paz. The scene is amazing… the location is like a giant soup bowl with the main city at the bottom and thousands of slum-like houses clinging for dear life to the side of the bowl… it really takes you breath away when you first gaze at the sight… its a sprawling metropolis like we have never seen.

Our hostel is fantastic… yet again we seem to have picked a winner and this has been really important to us. La Paz is a great city to explore during the day, but after dark the place takes on a different feel and the friendly eyes of the day become the threatening stares of the night.

The first night was definitely a chill out time and I spent the entire evening lying in a heap in our bedroom, while Lynsey planned our time in South America’s poorest country.

Our favourite activity here in La Paz has definitely been exploring the cobbled streets and shopping at the various stalls scattered throughout the northern area of San Sebastian. Everything is sold from stalls in La Paz; right from everyday branded goods (all imported) to indigenous crafts and some very strange stuff in the Witches Market; where Llarma fetuses, dried frogs with sparkle eyes and stuffed armadillos all make a gruesome spectacle!

We have had a great time bargaining with the locals and have found the Bolivians to be very placid people that weren’t as used to hard negotiation as we imagined… great news for us… and after getting several stall holders in headlocks we got some great deals out of them!!

The people here are as indigenous as we have seen in South America and apparently half of all the people here claim Indian heritage and boy can you see it… most are heavily tanned and about three feet tall, which is great for us…

We think that we look pretty fearsome as we stride around town!!!

That is until we meet the gangs of “shoeshine boys” who really are frightening the first time you clap eyes of them. Not only do they hound everyone in shoes, but because of the social stigma they all wear baseball caps with balaclavas… all you can see is their eyes and they look as if they are about to rob the local bank…

they wouldn’t manage that of course because the banks here are all patrolled by police armed with shotguns!!

Despite bowling around a clear two feet above most people, I did manage to get frightened out of my skin again on the second day.

Whilst browsing and looking at a stall of rugs I tried to pick up a nice-looking rug to have a closer look… just as I did an old lady revealed her head from under the rug and started trying to sell… “Amigo… comprar alfombra, comprar alfromba (buy rug, I believe)”.

I jumped about three feet into the air and because of the altitude my heavy breathing was laughable, I looked like I had done a half marathon and it took me ten minutes to recover!

The culture here is very different and we have both found ourselves remarking at sights in the everyday lives of the Bolivian people. Most women are very traditional, wearing layer after layer of brightly coloured dresses and their hair in two long pleated bunches under small bowler-like hats that they appear to balance on their heads. Their children are almost always wrapped up in an large and equally bright blanket, which they tie round their necks and sling over their shoulders like a bag of spuds.

The streets here are the busiest we have seen. Its a carnival of activity from early till late… the popular choice to get around in La Paz is the bus, not large ones but small 6 or 8 seaters… when we were touted by a bus driver in Valparaiso we were surprised… we’re not now!!!

La Paz is THE capital for buses touting for business… the streets are jammed with Toyota and Nissan people carriers and out of the side of each one hangs a bloke screaming the destinations and the prices… imagine how noisy ten might be in a normal street and multiply that by about five hundred and you can get an idea of what Avenue Montes and the 16 de Julio (The Prado) are like all day everyday.

What makes it noisier (if that is possible) is that Bolivians are not at all shy with their car horns and if someone pauses for a second, its a beep on the horn… if someone crosses the road in front of a car… its the horn again… in fact if one has a go on his horn the rest feel left out… enough said, its a carnival atmosphere that would make Notting Hill sound like a quiet afternoon stroll!

We are sure that many of you are thinking “Do we like it?”… and the answer is yes, but just like when I get drunk on a night out… its kinda fun for a while, but you can’t take too much and of course neither can Lynsey… or the Stevenage Old town kebab house for that matter!!

Our time in La Paz has been superb, it has been an experience that I have not had before and that Lynsey likens to her time in Southeast Asia. We had our reservations about coming to La Paz, but we are glad we did. Of course we have had to be careful while we have been here and we have met some people who have had bad experiences.

We have (finally) managed to book train tickets to Uyuni in the hope of spending a few days at the salt flats, so we are leaving La Paz tomorrow.. we have spent ages looking for The Mysterious Cities of Gold without luck… instead we go in search of Uyuni - The City of White Gold!!

Lynsey here … as Chris already mentioned, La Paz, well Bolivia in general was the one country we weren’t quite sure about! Before heading to La Paz we made a point of talking to fellow backpackers who had just come through Bolivia, and I must say that almost all of them thought Bolivia was fantastic.. and had some great stories to tell us. We have heard some bad experiences of Bolivia too, but then to be fair you hear bad stories from alot of places… even about London!

La Paz has been amazing .. I think me and Chris have both found that we kind of fit in better in Bolivia, the local people are much more accepting of gringos, I dont feel that we are stared at as much as we have been in sme places in Chile or Argentina.

Im looking forward to adding the photos of La Paz onto the blog so you can all see what its like. Its a very very busy and bustling city like Chris described, with the noise of the buses and horns, added onto that is the fumes from all those buses! One main reason for us having enough after four days here.

We have both brought lots of interesting things from the Witches Marcket .. we had to buy an extra bag to carry it all around in.