La Paz:

click pic to see LaPaz Photo Set

From Copacabana, we headed to LaPaz. I liked LaPaz. It`s a big city, with two parts...the nicer, older part is down in a valley while the newer slums are up on the surrounding plateau...on the edge of the altiplano.

I was there on Easter weekend, so I have some pictures of the religious procession that`s customary on Good Friday. It`s a little unsettling to see the religious types in their pseudo KKK outfits, followed by the band playing some very depressing, dark marching music. I also got to see Evo Morales, the President of Bolivia, and the first Indigenous president of any South American country...he`s pretty chummy with Chavez.

Some of the other pictures from LaPaz are of Chuño, a typical food that Tom told me to eat, which I will never forgive him for. A blog for that later. Also, there are some pictures from a place called the witches market...where they sell black magic stuff and offerings for PachaMama (mother earth). For some reason, witches love dried up animals or animal parts. Here in bolivia, it`s dried up Llama fetuses that you see the most...I guess witchcraft takes on a local flavor like anything else.

LaPaz´s zoning committee must have OCD. It`s funny, almost ridiculous really, but it`s such an organized chaos that it`s hard to believe. There`s one block for selling light fixtures...and on that block there could be as many as 30 stores selling the exact same light fixtures. Another block is for selling soap, another for pants, another for juice, and so on and so on. All the same product, nobody attempting to distinguish themselves from the others. It was eerie at times. I guess I just missed the old American Entrepreneurial spirit of making a unique, better product in order to put your competitor in the dirt.

La Paz was cool though, very cool.