We have had very intermittent Wi-Fi since Boxing Day so we will update the blog whenever we can! Could be long delays or possibly a number of posts together!!
We had no Wi-Fi at the apartment (problem outside of the building) and with no guarantee of when it would come back on (this is typical in Bolivia), we ventured out.
La Paz has a very new cable car system that starts right at the very top of the mountain, near the airport and has various stops all the way to the other side of town. It's weird seeing these brand new, air conditioned, yellow cable cars soaring above such an old, crowded and in a lot of parts, shanty town.
However, as La Paz is so hilly, the cable car is a lifeline for the locals (& unfit tourists!) and it is subsidised to just 3 Bolivianos per ride (30p) for as far as you want to ride.
We had a cable car station 200 metres from our apartment so decided it was about time we took a ride.
We first went right to the top with the intention of riding the whole length of the lines on the way down.
The views were amazing.
When we got off I felt light headed, similar to how I felt when I got off the plane on day one in La Paz. We later found out that the area at the top was over 4000 metres, about an extra 400-500 metres higher than where we've been staying and were now acclimatised to! No wonder I was light headed!
On the way down we took more pictures and worked our way to one of the hundreds of travel agents in the city to buy our bus ticket for Saturday, to a town called Copacabana (cue song!) on the side of Lake Titicaca (cue inappropriate giggles).
Lake Titicaca is a beautiful and huge lake that sits in both Bolivia and Peru. It's a popular tourist attraction and one high on our list from very early in our travelling plans.
On our travels we'd seen loads of Cholitas (Bolivian women in traditional dress) and I've now perfecteda great way of getting pictures of them; Pretend you're looking at a map on your phone whilst secretly snapping them! A bit cheeky I know but I really wanted you to see these amazing costumes!
Once the ticket was booked we needed to find somewhere to stay in Copacabana which we'd not managed to do without Wi-Fi at the apartment. We walked the city streets and stumbled across a lovely little Dutch cafe/restaurant (no, not that sort!) where we sat, had a drink and looked like that couple you see in every restaurant who sit, fixed on their phones rather than talking to each other! We didn't mind though, we had business to do and set about researching and emailing various places to see if they had availability for the next day. The Wi-Fi was apparently bring powered by a snail in a hamster wheel and was incredibly frustrating.
At the time of writing, 7am on Saturday 27th, we still don't know where we'll be staying tonight as we still have no Wi-Fi and didn't hear back from the places by the time we left the Dutch place last night after dinner!
After dinner (we ate at the Dutch place) we went back to the apartment for our last night in La Paz, our home for the most different Christmas we've ever experienced.
Lauren's thoughts:
When I woke up, Gareth had been in the in the living room as he hadn't been able to sleep. Our living room was a little chilly that morning so I was greeted by a thermalled up G, how cute eh?
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