Wednesday, June 3, 2015

June 3: 18,055 steps in La Paz, Bolivia

This morning at 3:54am we were all woken up by a group of travelers and a receptionist entering our hostel room. The space all the girls is stating in has a main level and an upstairs. Paige, Kristi, and I are in one room upstairs, Ana is across the hall, and Reva, Judy, and Ally are all downstairs. They came in when Reva was up going to the bathroom and she asked why they were in our room, but they didn’t speak English so they just walked around her and went upstairs. The employee came into our room and flipped on the light, waking all of us up, then turned it off and went back downstairs. Paige got up out of bed and went to get Ana. By now we were all awake from all of the noise and lights. Ana talked to the employee and she said she thought our room was unoccupied, so she was coming to check. Obviously it wasn’t, so she went back out of our area to find somewhere else for these travelers to stay. In the meantime the travelers were all just standing downstairs, so Ana asked them to leave. They told her it was cold out so they didn’t want to go outside. Ana was not having that, and got lippy with them. They weren’t going to be staying in this room, so they should have just gone to wait in the reception area. So eventually the lady came back and Ana talked/yelled at her about busting into our room at 4:00am. Laster in the morning at breakfast the guys told us that the lady also came into their room, turned on the light to see if anyone was in the room and then turned it off and left, which also woke all of them up. We still aren’t quite sure the reasoning behind her decision because there is an unoccupied room full of beds right next to our rooms that has been empty since we got here, so she should have just put them in there. Who knows.

After breakfast Kristi, Judy, Zach, Ana, Spodek, and I went to a café to relax at for a bit. I ordered apple tea, and it was delicious. At noon we met up with the rest of the group and rode cable cars up to the very top of the city. The views were amazing. It was the best way to experience the size of the city and see all of the mountains surrounding it. La Paz has the highest population in the world at its altitude, and the largest airport. We got out of the cable cars at the top and went to a lookout point where we could see the entire city. It was breathtaking (no pun intended).




We walked around the streets a little and came across a cholita with a baby alpaca. It was only 5 months old! We pet it and took pictures with it. Its fur was so soft, I can see why they make clothing out of it around here. During this time I filled up my first memory card on my camera (32 GB). I’m honestly surprised it lasted that long.


We rode the cable car back into the city and I took a really awesome time lapse video of the ride down. We went and ate some lunch and then came back to the hostel to rest. This city, although it is amazing, really takes the energy out of you when you aren’t used to functioning in this high of altitude.

This evening Paul, Ally, Paige, Kristi, and I walked to a large park nearby that has a skywalk. It gave us an amazing view of the city at night! It was neat to walk around and see all of the hustle and bustle of the night life. There were a lot of school kids out in their uniforms still heading to a fair that had rides, there were a couple of soccer games going on, a movie was playing that had a line out the door and down the street, many people were out selling things on the corner. It was very active, and very exhausting. Kristi and I went to the supermarket after to grab dinner (bread and banana). Neither of us had much of an appetite.


Tonight is our last night in Bolivia. We are headed to Cusco, Peru tomorrow morning. Cusco is also at a very high altitude, around 11,000 feet. I think we are all hoping that we feel a little better going down 1,000 feet, but it is still a very high elevation. We are going to Machu Picchu while in Cusco, which I am excited about. But I am very much looking forward to getting back down to normal altitude. 

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