If you stand in the right place, you can also get a glimpse of Mt Illamani looming over the city in the distance.
I did a bit of sightseeing on Monday and Tuesday. I saw the Palacio Legislativo, the Cathedral and the 16th century Iglesia de San Francisco. I then went to the Calle Jaén museums and the Museo de Instrumentos Musicales, which had on display a lot of strange and unique musical instruments. I also paid a visit to the Witches' Market, which among other exotic things sells dried llama foetuses - apparently locals believe that burying these under the porches of their new homes will bring them luck.
And yesterday I went for a gentle bike ride down the WMDR.
If you're wondering what the WMDR is, it's the World's Most Dangerous Road, also known as the Death Road. It leads from La Cumbre down to Coroico, and it's 39 miles long and not much wider than a single vehicle in places, with a vertical drop from one side that explains the road's name. In reality the road is nowhere near as dangerous as it used to be, because a replacement road opened in 2007, which means that the old road is now mainly used only by cyclists and support vehicles. However, there is still a risk to cyclists, and we were told that an Israeli girl died only a couple of weeks ago after going over the edge in wet and foggy conditions. We also passed numerous other memorials to people that have died on the road (before the new road opened, an average of 26 vehicles per year went over the edge).
I decided to do the WMDR trip with B-Side Adventures, which is one of the companies recommended by Lonely Planet. It was a good choice too, because there were only four in our group (me, a Russian/British girl called Jana, and two Swiss guys), whereas some of the other groups had 15 or more people with only one guide, which is surely less safe.
It was a good day out, and not particularly dangerous, because the weather conditions were good (the most frightening bit was the drive back up the road afterwards in the minibus). Our guide took some photos and videos during the day, and we were all meant to get a CD with them on, but I haven't been able to pick the CD up because I'm leaving La Paz this morning and the office isn't open yet. I'll add some of those photos if I ever get hold of them, but for now I'll just show a couple of photos of the scenery (here, below and a couple more in my May 2010 album).
On Tuesday I bought a fairly ridiculous-looking alpaca jumper, which will hopefully allow me to cope a bit better with the cold nights in the mountains. I won't need it immediately though, because later this morning I'm getting the bus to Rurrenabaque in the Amazon Basin, where heat and humidity (and mosquitoes) are more likely to be the problem than the cold. I'm told it's been raining in Rurrenabaque, which means that road conditions may be bad, so it'll be interesting to see how long the scheduled 18-hour journey actually takes.
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