Fly-by Pope and Tiwanaku

I was back in La Paz for a few more days after the jungle. I flew back (in a tiny 20 seater turbo prop, one seat each side) on the same day the Pope paid a flying visit to La Paz. His route when past my hostel so I went and lined up with the crowds to get a glimpse of his holiness in the evening when he was due to drive past.

I got a glimpse. Only a glimpse though as he shot past at a good speed. Blink and you would have missed him.

I also went on an interesting day trip to Tiwanaku, the spiritual home of the Bolivian people. The Tiwanaku empire was pre-Inca and successful for around 1000 years before "environmental" factors (didn't get to the bottom of that one) signaled their demise. A lot of the Tiwanaku beliefs however formed the foundations for the Inca culture. El Cóndor ruling the sky, the Puma the ground level and the serpent the underground. And of course Pachamama: mother earth. 

Tiwanaku was once a great city but there isn't a great deal to be seen of it now and only a small area has been excavated to date. The real stars though are the monoliths. Now mainly housed in the museum the size, detail and presence of these mighty statues was really impressive (no photos allowed though unfortunately). 

the sun gate

The site and the tour were fascinating, it was a long day however (3 hour drive each way) and the big tour group was mainly compiled of groups of French (Bolivia is overrun by the French at the moment it seems) speaking French. My French was long ago replaced by Spanish.

La Paz

I ended up being in and around La Paz for a few weeks and it started to feel like home.

I really grew to like it: the general chaoticness; the tombola hat wearing Cholitas; the lightning fast hands at the burger stalls; the labyrinthine maze of sloping floors in the market; Felicity with the best chorripan in town; our favourite juice lady; Crazy Dave the American giving tours around his former home San Pedro prison (what does he do with all that milk powder); the ever changing street stalls and the ever present Illimani. What wasn't so nice about La Paz was the pollution.

"Hay choripan!"

I arrived in La Paz feeling pretty run down and although I still got out and about and did some fun things I wasn't in great shape for a week. Managed 2 days of paragliding up the valley, under the watchful presence of Illimani, and cycled the death road. That was a fun ride: a fast top section down the nice tarmaced new road and then the death road itself is a gravel track dropping down into the jungle. Not a challenging ride but passing the odd corner with a 100m drop on your side helps keep your speed in check. Whole different matter driving this road with a fully loaded truck or a bus full of people...in the rain. At its narrowest its about 3m, between vertical rock face and vertical drop.

My tiring week was rounded off when I came back late on Friday night to find my locker broken into and my things strewn across my bed. Camera, Ipod, paragliding GPS (basically all my elctronics) gone...

So the next day I had to go to the police. By the time I'd got to the right building it was the afternoon and the officer I talked too initially refused to take my statement, asking why I hadn't reported it immediately (at 2 in the morning), how were they going to take finger prints now (yes, believe that), and probably lots of other things I didn't understand. After 10 minutes of this however he invited me in and an hour later I'd just about managed to communicate what had happened and what had been stolen. All I needed was my official statement for the insurance and I was done... 

The printer however had run out of ink. No problem, the officer assured me, just come back on Tuesday when it should be working again.

The reason I was hanging around La Paz for so long was to wait for the arrival of my future climbing buddy Malcolm to attempt some of the big mountains nearby. He duly arrived on Monday and being a practically fluent Spanish speaker kindly accompanied me back to the police station for the formality of collecting my statement...

But oh, it could never be that simple. Back at the police station, the same officer I'd given my statement to now informed us the case had been handed over to an investigating officer and that he therefore couldn't give me my statement until it had been properly investigated, which would probably be... 6 months, give or take. Smashing. After further discussion trying to explain the inadequacy of this situation we got the name of the investigating officer and headed off to another building to see if we could get my statement printed there.

We patiently waited around a while, then pushing the issue, were told he wasn't in but he would be tomorrow, back at the same office we'd just left.

So on Wednesday morning back we went.... oh no... no he's not working today, but he might be in this afternoon. You can try coming back at 2?

Getting a little frustrated, we went back to remonstrate with the officer who had originally taken my statement. 10 minutes of patiently trying to explain all I needed was a single print out of my statement, and getting absolutely nowhere, Malcolm had a moment of inspiration....

"Cuanto cuesta (how much)?"

Cincuenta. The guy didn't even blink. And that was that. We were out of there 5 minutes later with my official signed and stamped statement.

A fascinating insight into the workings of the Bolivian police department.

Before Malcolm arrived, I'd started to perk up a bit and on Sunday went for a wander around the market El Alto, a cable car ride up to the top of the valley and a huge market selling everything from clothes to car parts (mainly clothes and car parts actually). I'd had a look around La Paz for a new camera and the choice and prices were a bit disheartening. I was therefore delighted to find a similar model camera to mine (although not quite as nice) on a stall in El Alto. Undoubtedly stolen, but it must have been there a while as the seller dropped his initial price substantially and I got it for a pretty good deal. 

We were picked up directly from El Alto and got on an exclusively white tourist bus to go and see the big Sunday night show in La Paz: Cholita Wrestling! 

We were entertained with some regular showman wrestling to warm up the crowd before the Cholitas made their grand entrance, and then a mix of Cholitas, wrestlers and tag teams.

The prime seats around the ring were packed with tourists but the big family terrace to the side was full of Bolivian families. One large lady was definitely leading the crowd and she had her clear favourites. She showed her disapproval of the others with a never ending volley of chicken bones.

Although fun, the novelty had started to wear off after an hour and a half but it all changed with the last fight; the event descending into chaos with a witch doctor tag team bossing the ring (and the crowd), their real decapitated lama heads and strings of guts giving them voodoo invincibility. And they weren't afraid to send the guts towards whoever displeased them, ringside or out...

Dont mess with the voodoo

Flying in La Paz

Had some spectacular flights near La Paz the last 2 days, with incredible views of Mount Illamani across the valley. Winter conditions so base isn´t very high, with an inversion around 3800m. You really notice the difference flying at altitude - its much faster! Once you´ve got used to it though its a lot of fun, you can really crank the turns (and need to here as the thermals aint big). 

Admiring the view (Mount Huayna Potosi in the distance)

10/05/2015

Got a ride up the hill with the AndesXtremo tandem pilots to the Yanari take off (I think) at 3600m. Did a little 8km out and return on my first flight, heading into wind up the valley for the first leg. Had to work hard for it. Had one good climb at the beginning up to about 3800m but the thermals after that were quite rough and broken. Found myself a few times going up at 4m/s (even 7 once) then back down just as quickly. Hard to maintain any altitude! The return leg with the wind was super easy and landed with the tandems in the valley.

  

11/05/2015

Went down the valley towards La Paz this time. Climbs were better than yesterday to start with but got quite rough later on further down the valley. Got up to 3900m late on. Had to scrap around after making a longish transition but then got a nice thermal and drifted with it along and up the ridge - a classic thermal line! Climbs up to 4m/s. The final ridge had some awesome valle de luna esque rock formations with some amazing knife edge ridges and great colours. Admiring the view proved too much of a distraction and I lost too much height and had to land at the bottom of the ridge leaving a bit of walk out (and a small valley to cross) to get to the road. Flew about 15km, which is pretty much as far as you can go unless base is really high (which it rarely is apparently). If it is, you can hop over the last ridge and land in La Paz. 

Heading north