Day 27

 
 
 
 

Up ridiculously early (0500) to catch a plane to La Paz to start our travels. Mike has come so far in his ability to travel from the first time my family took him to Mexico. He crawled out of bed (remember this is 0200 his time), took a shower and was out the door in half an hour. We saw the sunrise at the airport and boarded our plane without difficulty. A travel person picked us up at the airport and took us to our hotel and then about an hour later our tour guide picked us up to go on a tour of La Paz. We saw the Valley of the Moon, so named because when Neil Armstrong saw it (when he came to Bolivia to see the salt flats which he had seen from space) he said that it looked like the moon. We went to the town square where our guide pointed out bullet holes in one of the buildings from a shoot out between the president protected by the military and the citizens protected by the police. The president ultimately escaped to the US. We then went through museums where our guide explained the evolution of the cultures in La Paz and Bolivia as a whole. It is great to have someone who knows the history who takes time to give the details that we wouldn’t have known at all without him.
We spent the afternoon in the Witches Market, where we had lunch at a lovely restaurant and even tried lama, which is good, but takes some time to chew. After lunch, our guide had told us to drink the house specialty drink to help with digestion (which is hard for our body at this altitude) so we asked for the drink. Our waiter obliged and brought out a jug wrapped in a towel and poured two shots (it is alcohol). We took our shots, which tasted to us like grapes. Once the shot was down, our waiter put the jug on the table and took the towel away from the jug to reveal a boa constrictor inside (dead of course) marinating in the alcohol. I am amazed that I didn’t puke up the shot, but I did feel uncomfortable about the large snake staring at me from a jug of alcohol on my table. I’m glad I didn’t know what was in the jug before taking the shot. The funny thing is that I think I read about that drink and what was in the jug before, but mentally blocked it or something.
After an afternoon of shopping in the witches market and burping snake juice (only once or twice did that grape flavor burp back up, but it brought with it the image of the snake), we walked more into the city to look for dinner. Mike wanted to try saltañas, which is a morning food, but somehow we found a restaurant with some left so he got to try them and was a big fan. I didn’t think they were as good as the ones I had had in Santa Cruz so we will have to have them again. Then we went home to crawl into bed and watch a movie, the altitude was giving Mike a headache and I took that as a sign that I should rest too.