La ¨Paz¨... not exactly peaceful.

I´m now in La Paz, the capital of Bolivia. After my last post, I rode a bus around Lake Titicaca to the Bolivian side of the lake. The trip included a very high-tech ferry system:

That´s my bus, with my pack visible on top. We passengers had to take the people-ferry (a little speedboat), while the bus got its own ride over. I was glad the barge didn´t capsize on the way across, as it seemed about to do several times.

On another note... I have to say, I´m disappointed in my Lonely Planet guidebook. Don´t get me wrong, it´s been doing pretty well. It´s slipped up once or twice, but hey. Nobody´s perfect. But this latest omission... wow. See, my guidebook mentioned a nice park with a fantastic 360 degree view of La Paz and the surrounding mountains. So I visited it. Figured out where it was, walked up the huge hill, paid the 50 cent entrance fee. And it was right... there was a very good view:

What the guide neglected to mention was that the ¨park¨ was really a huge playground, complete with thousands of screaming children:

Generally speaking, I´m liking Bolivia, though. Especially the prices -- they´re even cheaper than Peru, if that´s possible. Where else can you get a Coke in a glass bottle for 12 cents... and for 6 cents if you don´t mind drinking off-brands?

I´ve visited a couple museums in La Paz... not the boring kind, though. The first was a hands-on Bolivian musical instrument museum, loaded with little guitars, big flutes, and a surpising variety of drums. My favorite:

I also went to the very informative Coca Leaf museum. With the aid of an English booklet, I learned about the still-popular South American practice of chewing coca leaves (gives a buzz, much like having a cup of coffee), the chemical process of extracting cocaine from the coca leaves (complete with a very informative schematic of a do-it-yourself crack lab), and the history of cocaine in popular culture. Coca-Cola? Yup. Made with cocaine until 1912. And it´s still flavored with coca leaves.

As the caption says... no one (not even Mr. Castro) is free from Coca-Cola.

And it turns out that the common and popular ¨coca tea¨ Nic and I have been enjoying actually does contain miniscule quantities of cocaine. No wonder it helps with the altitude.

Later, I paid a visit to El Mercado Hechiceria... roughly translated, ¨Witch´s Market.¨ The one-stop place for all your magic-brew needs... mystic herbs, toad innards, lucky amulets....

...and baskets of shriveled llama fetuses. Nice.

Last, but not least, I checked out the ¨Valley of the Moon,¨ with its crazy wind-formed spires.

What better place than the Valley of the Moon to do... The Moonwalk?

Ok, ok. So it´s a pretty lousy Michael Jackson impersonation. You try taking a picture of yourself doing the Moonwalk on rough terrain.

And what South American city would be complete without parades? I heard a marching band outside my window one morning... no surprise there. As I headed out of the hostel a few minutes later, though, I noticed that TV in the lobby was playing the exact same parade. Televised from about 30 feet from my hostel.

This parade, it seemed, was for the anniversary of La Paz´s independence from Spain. Not Bolivia´s independence -- that´s on August 6th. Just La Paz. I tell you, they like their parades. I went about my business, paying little attention to the roadblocks that seemed to be springing up all over town. For the parades, I assumed. Little did I know....

Later that night I came across a major Bolivian block-party... sort of a combination of a Fourth of July celebration and a Times Square New Year´s Eve party.

That little square glowing thing on the left? That´s the stage. There were a lot of people packed into the square. Packed very closely. I´ve discovered that Bolivians have a lot less of a bubble than I do.

I hung around for several live bands, and was thinking about calling it quits when I figured out that they were frequently talking about how much time was left until midnight. Of course, I decided to hang around. Meanwhile, I sampled a variety of cheap (10-50 cent) street foods.

Street chefs in action. Price? Dirt cheap. Sanitation? Questionable.

My favorite was a shish-kabob of cherries that had been¨candied¨(like candy apples). My least favorite was a bowl of potatoes and strips of pork fat.

I headed back to the main square for midnight... they counted it down (just like we do on New Years), and the whole square sang what I assume was the national anthem. Then from right behind the stage they blasted off fireworks... the big kind, like we use one the 4th of July. And it definitely sounded like one or two exploded on the ground. Then another band got up, the party kept going, and I headed to bed. Yup. I´m one crazy party animal.