Back in old blighty!

Hi there!

I arrived home last week and have since been settling back into life in England. The longer I'm home, the more it feels like the last 4 months could all have been a dream – It seems like I’ve never been away!

My flight home was a bit of an ordeal. For starters the flight from La Paz to Miami also stopped in Santa Cruz (Bolivia's biggest city) and we had to get off for them to clean the plane up. It was already 25 degrees and swampy at 8.30am! As we were landing I noticed that a red carpet had been laid out for one of the private jets waiting on the runway. It turns out that the President of China had been visiting Bolivia that week, and so we were able to watch him board his plane whilst a brass band and about 50 Bolivian army officers waved him off. It was all a bit like an HSBC advert! We were inevitably delayed for our take off which meant I was late arriving into Miami and by the time I'd made it through passport control, had my finger prints and photo of my eyes taken, I was able to check my bags onto my connecting flight to London with about 10 minutes to spare! Fortunately I was flying with American Airlines so the flights themselves were pretty good – heaps better than Iberia at any rate.

My last stint in La Paz was really quite enjoyable as I was able to do a bit of sightseeing, some job hunting for my return, and a tiny bit of partying!

I must admit that the first time I came to La Paz (about two months ago with the Oasis tour) I wasn't too keen. I tended to prefer the towns we visited that have a Colonial old town with an attractive Plaza - Quite a lot of La Paz's architecture is modern with few colonial buildings left and to me it doesn't seem to have a central point at all. Also, there were always unpleasant smells lingering around - the main ones being fried chicken, urine and a stale citrus-y sugary smell. Not a great combination! Anyway, despite this I found that the place grew on me and I really started to feel at home there. La Paz's altitude, the steepness of its uneven streets combined with the daily hustle and bustle just takes your breath away but there a certain charm to the city that I can't quite put my finger on ...

Since arriving I walked my feet off, visiting all of the main sights that I didn't get around to seeing the first time around - San Francisco church, Miraflores district, Plazas del Estudiante, Avaroa, Isabel La Catolica, San Pedro and San Martin. The fruit and veg market at the end of Calle Illampu and the main boulevard - Avenida 16 de Julio or 'El Prado'. I managed to find a swimming pool as well as a cinema - I went 4 times during my 10 days there seeing ‘Planet of the Apes’, ‘Lion King’ (in 3D!), a Disney flick about Paris as well as an Argentinean rom-com - 'Igualita a Mi' which I would recommend v highly to any Spanish speakers!

On Thursday of my last week there were protests in la Paz and many people took to the streets to block them off meaning that no vehicles could drive through the centre of the city at all. It caused lots of problems for people trying to get to the airport that day and apparently there were backlogs of passengers waiting at the airport for a few days afterwards. I'm still not really sure why the protests took place - I heard various reasons from different people. Youth unemployment was one reason, the price of public transport was another and someone else told me that there is an indigenous community not far from La Paz who want independence, and these were the people who were blocking off the streets. I didn't know what or who to believe! Anyway, it was really quite eerie walking down the middle of the main streets which were normally heaving with traffic. The barricades that people had made weren't really very heavy duty and I got the impression that if the same thing had happened in the UK, drivers wouldn't have taken any notice and would have just driven through regardless. At some junctions people had placed a few rocks in a line across the road and at other places they used a few sticks. Others just had a pathetic line of 4 or 5 people standing about chatting and wagging their fingers if a stray car or motorbike tried to pass them. I saw this happen a few times and the drivers just turned around obediently and went back. They must have been glad to have the day off work! Being as there were no cars around most of the shops, museums and eating places remained closed all day so I was at a bit of a loss as to what to do!

At the weekend, a friend who I'd made in Quito came to visit. Since living in Ecuador she has been volunteering in a nursery in Cochabamba and hadn't yet been into La Paz. We walked all around and went to the modern art museum together on Saturday and on the Sunday we went on a bus tour out to see the 'valley of the moon' which is an area outside of the city centre with stunning, natural geological rock formations. We got some pretty interesting commentary about Bolivia in general from our headsets too - for example, the reason that Bolivian women wear little bowler hats perched on their heads is that a couple of hundred years ago a milliner from London went to Bolivia to try to sell hats to South American men. Unfortunately there was a problem with the order and they all turned out far too small to wear - he managed to sell them to the high society ladies of La Paz, however, telling them that these hats were all the rage with European women! Following on from this the working classes adopted the fashion to copy the wealthier ladies, and the trend has stuck! Apparently if you are a married woman you would wear the hat straight on your head, but if you are single you can wear it at a jaunty angle. We were also told a bit about Bolivian politics – eg, in 1969 they had a president who lasted only 5 minutes before being turfed out of power! Anyway, that was a really enjoyable tour and the scenery was stunning.

Before leaving I managed to fit in one final shopping spree and stocked up on plenty of knitwear. Amazingly, I managed to compress 4 months of hard-core shopping into my rucksack and one moderately sized piece of hand luggage, which I was very chuffed about!
Anyway, I'm now back home after having had a fantastic 4 months in South America. I've got so many wonderful memories and made some really good friends. It's been a blast! This is my last blog entry for the time being … until my next trip!!