La Paz

Today we slept in and then went on a city tour of La Paz. I thought we were just getting your run of the mill city tour, but it ended up that we had a private tour and a "handler" who came with us to be a guide and negotiate with people if necessary. I started a Flickr set here.

We went to the valley of the moon (of La Paz - not to be confused with the one in Chile):


And there was a guy singing, playing flute (I bought one) and guitar on top of a peak:


We went to a high point to see the city, which is indescribable. This picture does not do it justice. It's huge and runs up every mountainside in every direction:


Then to the city center to see the Congress building:


And ran into some trouble that was for the birds:


We went and saw Inca and Tiwanacan gold and couple of other museums in the Spanish part of the city:


And then wrapped up at the witches market, where they will sell you vicuna fetuses and other offerings for Pachemama:


As well as a lot of other hand-crafts from Bolivia at really crazy cheap prices. We had a good time and learned that La Paz is not really very scary at all.

Tomorrow, we go to Lake Titicaca to visit Copacabana and Isla del Sol. It's going to be a long day of a lot of driving, but it seems cool to go check it out for a few hours and we have again a private tour so that's pretty awesome. I will probably report on that on Friday as we are supposed to get back from that pretty late tomorrow. We'll see.