La Paz: Ciudad de Las Aventuras

El Mercado de Bolivia

Señor Hans used to be known for disliking markets. Then again, Señor Hans used to be known for disliking French people, until he met some really nice ones. Downtown La Paz is one big sprawling market. And you know what ? Señor Hans se gusta ! Mucho :-)
Almost anything you can think of can be bought on El Mercado. That is, if you can find it. Per well-established developing nation custom the same kind of stalls (and shops) are all put together in one street.
The constant market bussle makes the city so lively, and you can buy cheap and yummy food and jugos de naranja, and Señor Hans can look over everyone´s heads, and there are table football games where every age or gender plays as if it´s the world cup.
Another interesting phenomenon is the ´Prado´. El Prado is the main traffic artery from one part of the city center to the other. It starts in the area where all the street markets are, and gradually finds its way to the more affluent part of the city center. And every step you take in that direction, is a step "richer". First the street stalls start to sell more luxury stuff (like Snickers and leche de chocolate), then they disappear altogether and make place for statues and expensive restaurants until it ends in a widely-spaced green boulevard. Very peculiar.
Just like the shoeshine boys. They dress like bank robbers !

Note: travelling around here almost makes you immune to things like child labour and begging, and here in La Paz it is startling. Many women, not only old, just sit down all day on the pavement holding up their hand. And so many kids work on the markets, in hotels or on the streets. It still makes me sad.


The Last of the Great Ruins

Regular followers of my adventures know my love for history and its remains. The last of the great Andean civilisations I had to visit were the people of Tiwanaku. In their hayday, around 700AD, they exerted religious and cultural influence over a vast area of Bolivia and beyond (see more in the history links). Alas, not much is left of their once great city. Already the Incas, who admired what they found here enormously, started to use the stones for their own purposes. The Spanish chroniclers still found a huge abandoned city. But like the Coliseum in Rome, it turned out to be a very convenient source of building material. It is sad to see that only a few walls and statues remain.


Climbing the Mountain

As if Señor Hans doesn´t torture his body enough, the luminous idea came to him to climb ´a really high mountain´. Huayna Potosí is a mountain of almost 6100 meters high, which is very close to La Paz and ... which is ´climable´ without any real experience. Gotcha !
The team existed of our guide, "cerveza" Eloy, my Israeli climbing buddy, "shit happens" Eyal and myself (no nickname required). Oh how blissfully ignorant we were of what was to come !

The first day was by car to the 4700m base camp, where we were instructed in the dark arts of ice climbing ... big uncomfortable boots with steely spikey thingies attached, a dangerously real pickaxe and a clown´s outfit. It was fun. In the end Elloy wanted us to climb a 10m vertical ice wall. We both reached around halfway up before plunging to our certain deaths if it wasn´t for the fact that the little devil already climbed up to put all sorts of safety stuff in place.

Second day was ´going to rock camp´ day, which is the last place before the ice started. We had to lug all our stuff up their though, which meant going from 4700 to 5100 meters with a 15-20kg pack on our backs. I am not built for this kind of thing ! But hey, I wanted to climb the mountain. Although very tiring, it didn´t take long and we spent the rest of the day resting in the tent, protected from the cold.

The day of reckoning started at midnight. Well, you want to see the sun rise on the mountain, right ? Yeah yeah. Two hours of sleep, freezing cold, over 5000 meters and in our full colour (multi-multi-layer) outfit, we started the 6 hour ascend. It was completely inhuman... Although starting briskly, soon we were walking like old men, very slowly, panting al the time and using our pickaxes to lean on. But we made progress and even scaled a 30m high near vertical ice wall, which was completely amazing !
After that things got worse. Eyal was having stomach problems the first day and he wasn´t fully recovered. We had to stop more often (of which I was glad as well) and after four and a half hours, with the summit in sight, it was over. I still had some energy left, but we had only one guide, so we had to go back. We were at 5900 meters and at least minus 10 degrees where the ´shit´ happened (figuratively and literally).

Although I was a bit disappointed for not making it to the top, it was an Experience; the most exhaustive of my life and one I am not sure I will try again ... but ask me again in a week or so ;-)

PS. Tomorrow: 60 km downhill bike ride from 4700m down to 2000m ... :-D