After a quite stuffy, hot, sweaty night bus we arrived in La Paz. At about 4am. Without a hostel reservation or any interest in walking around in the cold with our packs. Solution? Carefully select a bench in the bus station, put on all your clothes and fall asleep. Surprisingly, we slept until around 730am, when the bus terminal was finally buzzing with people. Trying to make our appearance as normal as possible (not much you can do when you haven't showered in 4 days, then took a bus and slept on a bench), we grabbed our stuff and walked down to the hotel we were meeting Ellen's dad at. He was arriving super early the next morning, but he decided to include the night before in the reservation. And thankfully they allowed us to check in several hours early. I thought they might turn away these two scraggly smelly backpackers that turned up, but they were super nice!
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| Adorable |
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| We decided to see if the oxygen made the altitude any easier |
It was amazing to finally have a shower and several hours of good sleep. We scoped out the neighborhood and went to the supermarket to buy food for dinner. Then we retreated back to the hotel. Geoff arrived the next morning. His first trip to South America! He claimed that he hadn't studied any Spanish before coming, and he was just using what he remembered from high school. I was impressed, because its more that I remembered from high school almost. Very nice.
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| Iglesia San Francisco |
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| More creepy llamas |
We spent the next couple of days wandering around La Paz. It was really nice to have a couple days to just relax. Also breakfast at the hotel was awesome. Hooray for real coffee. I finally bought myself one of the sweaters that allllll the other backpackers have. And you know what, I love it? I don't care how unoriginal it is. It's warm and fuzzy.
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| When I asked someone what these plants on the electrical wires are, they called them air plants and seems utterly unconcerned they were hanging on the wires. |
It was also exciting to have a phone again! My phone had been stolen (off my bed in the middle of the night while I was sleeping) when in a hostel in Santiago. So for the last month, Ellen had basically been sharing her's with me. She's the best. But luckily my insurance gave me a new one, and Geoff was able to bring it down to me. Thank you!!
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| Panorama from a mirador |
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| What you doin big rock? |
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| Heh. Classic. |
