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Bolivia – A country of altitude, La Paz in the heights!

We finished our tour in the town of Uyuni, a small town a little bit weird and depressing. So, although very tired we decided to leave the same day on a night bus to La Paz, with 4 people of our tour.

La Paz was a nice surprise and we were still on the heights. The big city is about 3,660 m. Definitely Bolivia is a country of altitude, Tupiza was at 3,000 m, on our Salar tour we got to 5,000 and Copacabana, our next destination, lies at 3,800 m. Uffff! No wonder why in midsummer we are catching a cold of 14 degrees! Well, at least our body has got used to the heights. But the center of La Paz sits in a valley and each time we had to climb a slope we could already feel the lack of air.

The center is very charming, with some colonial-style houses and several different colors, but in all the mountains around it looks more like a big slum, with all buildings unfinished, like a sea of bricks.

From a distance we could also see the fabulous Illamani mountain, with its peak full of snow which reaches 6,402 m. We could even see it from the window of our room. Wow!

But what holds our eyes the whole time were the exotic Cholitas, traditional local women with their huge colorful skirts, long double braids and their unique hats.

The crazy Carol took the opportunity to venture a bike ride for 4 hours and 33 km down the most dangerous road in the world (The Death Road) dropping from 4,700 m to 1,000 m altitude. Over the past six years about 15 tourists died on that way, but Carol got her t-shirt: “I survived the Road of Death!”.

Meanwhile, Alexis went to visit the museum of Coca, and there he discovered that Freud was the first cocaine addict and had nose cancer of sniffing too much!, and the museum of musical instruments. We met our tour mates for dinner a few times and on Sunday we went together to see the ridiculous and entertaining Cholitas wrestling (like Catch fight American style) after we visited the huge street market in El Alto.

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