La Paz

The hustle and bustle of La Paz is impressive, many of the streets crowded with vendors hawking everything from woven textiles to glasses of peach juice to dried llama fetuses. Microbus windscreens are plastered with their destinations but also have a crier unremittingly calling a litany of stops out a window. Everyone seems to be honking all the time. The lack of coherent pedestrian/automotive relations is somewhat alleviated by enthusiastic crosswalk tenders in full zebra costumes. My only frame of reference for this surrealism is the white-striped crosswalks called zebra crossings in England. Also in Bolivia?

Bolivian women have a highly distinctive style of traditional dress: a calf-length velvet or layered satiny skirt, possibly worn with wool tights or leg warmers and black sandals. Also a blouse and cardigan and then either a silk (or silken) fringed shawl pinned in front or a capacious full-length cotton apron. I think they must wear a multitude of petticoats. Finally the famous bowler, not looking much like Thompson and Thomson's bowlers but higher, squarer and neutral colored from mushroom to quince to mouse to black. It is a source of endless fascination to me that the bowlers sit so improbably high, are demonstrably not pinned on and demonstrably do not fall off. Many women and some men also use a brightly colored woven blanket as a sling to carry babies and other necessary articles. Women dressed in traditional style invariably have long black hair worn in two braids down the back, finished off with beaded or woven tassels. We have seen hair extensions with these tassels for sale in the markets -- presumably longer braids are considered more beautiful. We wish it were less sticky to ask people if we could take their photo; we might then have more.


The city is built in a valley and rises up its steep sides in a patchwork of adobe houses, winding streets and flights of steps. Mike and I took a long walk through the city, past the Palacio Legislativo and Casa del Gobierno, and up into the neighborhoods above the town. Lunch was delicious tucumanas (like empanadas) and fresh strawberry juice. We wandered into a little complex of museums -- the costumbrista gallery showing wonderful photographs and grotesque masks, and the museo del oro showing impressive Incan gold pieces.















We also got in on the Bolivia vs. Argentina futból match, part of the qualifying rounds for the all-important World Cup. As everyone now knows underdog Bolivia creamed Argentina, 6-1. The stadium was nearly sold out and a big cohort of Argentina fans made themselves unignorable. As Bolivians themselves attest, they are not as excitable as fans in other South American countries. Defeat has made them philosophical. However, it was a great day of yelling our heads off as the team racked up gol after gol.