Well, this is it. I’m in La Paz, getting ready for my flights to come home. Incas have been encountered, trails have been hiked, llamas and alpacas aplenty have been seen and photographed. It’s time to rejoin the real world.
Adventures in flying
My day started early, after a terrible sleep that kept being interrupted by a mosquito buzzing in my ear. Since we’re too high up here for mosquitoes, I’m not sure where it came from, but it annoyed me enough that I dragged myself out of bed at 4am to hunt it down.
Anyway, when I woke up, I booted up my laptop to check in on line for tomorrow’s flights home, only to find that my flight out of La Paz had been delayed. This meant that I would miss my connection in Lima. The alternate itinerary that they tried to offer me would’ve meant a 10-hour layover in Mexico City, two consecutive nights of red-eyes, and no sleep for three days. Of course, I didn’t get to be a travel ninja by accident; I worked the flight sites and came up with a better alternative through Miami that would mean only getting home an hour later than planned, and I got the airline to make the change for me before I’d even had breakfast. All in a day’s travel.
That sorted, I packed my bags, grabbed some breakfast, and climbed onto the minibus with the rest of the tour for the drive to the airport for our local flight back to La Paz. We were all loaded up and ready to go. There was only one problem: Sam was stuck in traffic. See, there’s a 10K race in Sucre today. And, like in Montreal and elsewhere whenever there’s a race, the city had closed streets all over town, resulting in gridlocked traffic that made it a real challenge for us to get out of town. This was a bit of an issue, since we were booked on the only flight to La Paz today, and already running late; Sucre’s new international airport is nearly an hour out of town even with regular traffic, and time was ticking away. Many of us have international flights home tonight or tomorrow, so we were a little bit stressed.
We sat on the side of the road for another twenty minutes or so, moving maybe five feet in that time. Alessandra took a look out the front window at the traffic jam at one point and summed up our situation succinctly with a “yeah, we’re fucked.” Well put.
Finally, Sam and the driver figured out an alternate route, because we started to move. It took ages — even once we were free of Sucre’s traffic, the ancient minibus we were on struggled up the mountain roads to the airport. But we made it! With not much time to spare, either. But we were able to check in, get through security, and make it to the gate in time to board. It helps that Sucre’s airport is tiny, with only four gates. They even let me take my bottle of water on board.
The flight, on Bolivia’s national carrier BoA (not to be confused with the defunct former British airline BOAC) was short, only about 45 minutes in the air, and uneventful. They even served a snack. Okay, so it was ham and cheese, but hey, when was the last time any airline in North America served food on short-haul domestic?
We landed in La Paz around noon, and crossed our fingers that all the bags would arrive, too. They did, and soon enough we were on a bus crawling from El Alto back into La Paz.
Shopping, museums and one last beer
After checking into the hotel, I spent some time doing a bit of last-minute shopping. I went up to the central market, which is in full swing today since it’s a weekend, and goes on for blocks, selling everything from clothing to electronics to food. Quite a sight to see, though mostly stuff for locals. After that, I headed to the stretch of souvenir shops geared to tourists. I picked up a shot glass for my collection, and hemmed and hawed over an alpaca blanket before deciding against, due to dwindling funds and a lack of space in my bag.
I passed by the Coca Museum, so I decided to poke my head in for a look around. Hey, it only cost 15 Bolivianos, so why not? The museum is small, but there are informative guides about the history and uses of the coca leaf, the political, legal and health issues around it, how it’s grown and processed, and more. There was an English-language companion guide, which was helpful. The main message of the exhibit seemed to be that coca was all well and fine until the Americans got ahold of it and turned it into cocaine, thus starting all the problems. As usual, it was all America’s fault. So what else is new, right?
For lunch, there were so many options at my disposal that I got a bit overwhelmed, and ended back at Sol Y Luna just out of familiarity. The food was again good, the owner still helpful and friendly, and I tried one last Bolivian craft beer, just for posterity. I suspect if I were to spend any length of time in La Paz, I’d hang out there a lot.
A night at the museums
It must be the Montrealer in me, but there’s nothing I love better than stumbling on a random festival. Well, as it turns out, here in La Paz, tonight is Museum Night. It’s not actually on the same day as International Museum Day; it’s its own thing, really. All the museums in the city are open and free to the public tonight.
While the lineups to get into most of the big ones are prohibitively long, the side effect is that it seems like everyone is out on the streets tonight. San Francisco plaza is crowded with thousands of people, there’s street art and music everywhere, kids dressed up in random costumes, and a general sense of something happening here. Sucre had a nice sleepy vibe to it, but La Paz is proving to me that I’m a city girl at heart; I love the pulse of a city that always has something going on.
Walking back from the cafe at lunch, I stumbled on a few teens dressed in what I mistakenly took for Star Wars costumes. It turns out they were historical costumes of some sort, and the kids were positioned to escort people to a museum night taking place at their school. I poked my head in and was met by an enthusiastic teen with a “guide” sticker on his shirt — due to speaking better English than most, that was his role for the night.
He proceeded to take me through his giant school room by room, each one of which had a group of students putting on some sort of performance — art, dance, history, music – as well as the bigger concerts taking place in the main courtyard. It was all very amateurish and homegrown, not polished at all, which made it even better; just a bunch of kids putting on a school play for locals and tourists for credit. With the help of my young guide’s excellent interpretation, I was able to catch that some of the skits being performed were about Bolivia’s independence, one was about Che Guevara and guerrilla warfare, one represented the indigenous people’s cultures and struggles for recognition, and so on, and so forth. Good fun and a great use of a couple of my last hours in Bolivia.
Going Cuban in Bolivia
On my last night in Bolivia, you’d think I’d go for Bolivian food, right? Wrong. I met back up with the group for our final dinner, and we opted to go to a nearby Cuban restaurant. To be fair, Bolivian cuisine does seem to be a mishmash of other cultures, and Che Guevara is nearly as popular here is in Cuba. So maybe it’s appropriate. At any rate, the food was good, the mojitos were strong, and I felt like I’d jumped back in time to December. It was good fun anyway.
After dinner, I went back to the hotel to shower and sort my bags one more time. I won’t really be able to go to sleep, since I have to leave in the middle of the night for the airport. But I’m going to try to get a bit of rest, at least. It’s going to be a long day tomorrow.
Hasta luego, Bolivia
And so, this is it for Bolivia, at least for now. This is a fascinating country, and I’m glad I got to visit. The Salar de Uyuni is a definite highlight of my travel life, La Paz is fascinating, and Sucre is a gem. While definitely poorer than neighbouring Peru, with fewer flashy attractions, Bolivia is well worth a visit in its own right.
I’m starting the long trip home in a few hours. With any luck, barring any more delays or missed connections, and with a little help from Watarimono, I should be back home by tomorrow night. See you all soon!