27 October 2009
Gaudi's cousin Regula lives in La Paz, and offers us to stay in her lovely home. After a few weeks on the road in mostly cold hotel rooms, we can finally relax and recharge.
Our neighbourhood in the south of the city has its own centre with lots of restaurants: We eat twice at the Japanese (we're almost regulars). Regula works at a Swiss development NGO: Swisscontact. We learn a lot from her about current developments in Bolivia. Its a busy week for Regula, as she's organising a three-day event: a food-fair called Nuovo Boliviano: Chefs from all over town serve some of their creative cooking, and local food producers offer samples of their local produce (like Quinoa, a great alternative to wheat). After weeks of mostly dull meals, we enjoy sampling all these delicious dishes - and are reliefed that our tastebuds are still alive. But for Gaudi the highlight is the beer-workshop, which of course includes sampling local beers.
In La Paz, as on the rest of the altiplano, the colours of the landscape seem very intense. Regula's flat offers great panoramic views over the surrounding mountains which is a spectacular sight, especially in the mornings and evenings.
Gaudi's cousin Regula lives in La Paz, and offers us to stay in her lovely home. After a few weeks on the road in mostly cold hotel rooms, we can finally relax and recharge.Our neighbourhood in the south of the city has its own centre with lots of restaurants: We eat twice at the Japanese (we're almost regulars). Regula works at a Swiss development NGO: Swisscontact. We learn a lot from her about current developments in Bolivia. Its a busy week for Regula, as she's organising a three-day event: a food-fair called Nuovo Boliviano: Chefs from all over town serve some of their creative cooking, and local food producers offer samples of their local produce (like Quinoa, a great alternative to wheat). After weeks of mostly dull meals, we enjoy sampling all these delicious dishes - and are reliefed that our tastebuds are still alive. But for Gaudi the highlight is the beer-workshop, which of course includes sampling local beers.
In La Paz, as on the rest of the altiplano, the colours of the landscape seem very intense. Regula's flat offers great panoramic views over the surrounding mountains which is a spectacular sight, especially in the mornings and evenings.
In La Paz, we take strolls through the busy city centre, and visit the interesting Museo de Arte Contemporaneo, housed in a beautiful building designed by Gustav Eiffel. We also visit the 'Valle de la Luna': a canyon a bit outside of La Paz with bizarre rock formations. It's a very peaceful and tranquil place. One visitor feels so inspired, that he takes of all his clothes and performs some paryer or song (or so we think, we keep a large safety distance until he put back on his clothes). 
We arrange for a daytrip to the historic site of Tihuanacu through an agency. However, that morning a few things go wrong: first, the taxi we order can't find our address (Natasha suspects this is due to Gaudis Spanish communication skills, but it worked well the day before) - it arrives 15 minutes late. Then traffic on this Friday morning is just horrible: we hardly move and it takes almost an hour to get to town instead of the 10 minutes outside the rush hour. To top it off, our car overheats, and the taxi driver refuses to drive any further with his vehicle: he unloads us 10 blocks away from our destination, and we have to walk...We miss our tour bus by more than an hour. Luckily, the lady of the agency just moves us to the next day's tour, but not without advising us "not to oversleep" the next morning. Grrrrrrrrrrr.....
When we finally make it to Tihuanacu the next day, the site is spectacular. This used to be a temple of a pre-Inca civilisation. The surrounding landscape of mountains and snowy peaks in the distance is amazing. On the site itself, there are some fascinating carved statues and walls.
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