So we are finally staying in a legit youth party hostel in La Paz. Up until now we have been acting like a middle-aged couple, going to bed at 10:00, waking up early, drinking alcohol only in moderation... Our hostel in La Paz has a bar that goes all night with theme parties and is packed with Euro smokers and drinkers. Mike and I have been doing our best to not be the lamos that are always the first to go to bed in the dorm, but we have failed miserably. Once 2:00 a.m. hits I have had all the smoke in my eyes and lungs that I can handle so we embarassingly walk down to bed while everyone else piles in cabs to go to the clubs, returning when mike and I are awaking. Oh well, at least we are going to bed in the a.m.
La Paz is a really cool city in a "bowl" of a valley between tall mountains, almost as impressively sprawling as Quito but almost cooler because the houses (slums)build way up onto the surrounding mountains. It is pretty clean for a large city. We have been walking around and doing the obligatory sight-seeing with some friends from the hostel. One of the weirdest things we saw were the baby lama fetuses in the witch´s market. People buy these to lay in the foundation when they built a house in hopes that it will keep earthquakes from destroying it. We´re thinking of bringing one back to help us out in San Francisco, but worried they´ll confiscate it when the airport security see a lama fetus shaped object in our bags. The second wierdest thing we´ve seen is the traffic police men, who all are made to wear zebra costumes because it is less likely that people will punch, argue with or try to run over a zebra than a police man.
Unfortunately Mike got salmonella AGAIN and was in bed all day yesterday with a fever. I went to the Coca museum with some other people, which was quite interesting even if all it really was was a fat booklet of all the information in the museum translated into english. We just sat on stools and read for about 2 hours, because the pictures inthe museum were difficult to match up with the info in the booklet. I then ate a piece of coca cake drizzled with coca liquer which was not the most delicious thing ever, but hey... it´s cool.
The most memorable incident was when we decided to order a pizza to the bar to split between us and two other people we had just met. The pizza arrived and the whole bar turned to stare as both sides of the french doors had to be opened to allow the two men to carry the pizza through... it was at least 4x4 feet and the pizza slices stretched an entire arms-length (I´ll post a `pic of it when I get it for you non-believers). Anyways, one of the girls we were splitting it with started yelling and freaking out because it was more expensive than she had thought (170 bolivianos, or about $25 dollars between the 4 of us... NOT expensive). Plus, consider these facts: 1) we only made her chip in 20 bolivianos, which is less than THREE DOLLARS
2) the 20 boliviano bill that she gave us was actually fake so the pizza man wouldn´t accept it, so mike and I ended up paying 150 of the 170 bolivianos
3) When someone in the bar said "it´s 3 freakin´dollars and you didn´t even us a real bill, so stop moaning) she started crying hysterically for about 15 minutes
4) despite the fact that she was making this huge scene, she decided against leaving and instead sat their sobbing for all to see
5) After she collected herself, she made me walk around the bar trying to sell of slices of our contintent-sized pizza, and I made us 30 bolivianos
6) She took all 30 bolivianos, meaning she made money off the whole thing
Worst person we have met on our trip, second only to the guy who robbed us. But we had a great time because we will never see a pizza so big for as long as we live.
We are flying to Rurrenabaque tomorrow to do a pampas tour (of the flatlands filled with animals... pink dolphins, anacondas, monkeys, aligators, etc) and of the jungle, so we wont be blogging until we get back in at least 5 days.
Miss you guys... can´t believe we are coming home so soon. P.S. it hailed today and it was the biggest hail I´ve ever seen, even though its not even cold here.
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