The city is totally unlike any I have seen before - above is a view from one of the cable cars through the city. La Paz itself has a population of 1.8 million, but above it, high along the steep sides of the mountains and on the high, flat altiplano, is another city, El Alto, of around another million people. Parts of La Paz are really quite developed, with middle class citizens sipping cappuccinos in trendy cafes, but El Alto is where the poor people live, where apparently 90% of the factories are illegal - not registered with the authorities, not paying any taxes, making counterfeit products, etc. It is dangerous to visit although has beautiful views of the surrounding snow-capped mountains, and is now (since late last year) connected to the rest of the city by a cheap and efficient cable car system.
I'd arranged a tour there with a group (the only way of going there in reasonable safety but it is still recommended not to carry anything with you and not to wear any jewellery), but it didn't materialise, so I set off instead into the centre of La Paz by myself. I took one of the other cable car lines, then walked, then finally jumped on a 'trufi' (a cleaner, more modern equivalent to Kenyan matatus) into the centre. At least missing the tour gave me a chance to visit the Ethnographic Museum before its midday closure, a really good museum with an amazing display of masks from different parts of the country. Maybe one day I can get here at the right time to see one of the festivals, or even the Oruro carnival.
Then I wandered around the most touristy area, a few streets selling artisanal products, mostly clothes made from alpaca wool, as well as 'Street of Witches', where some of the little shops have a dried llama foetus or two hanging outside, to ward off evil.Also in this area is the Coca Museum. The coca plant plays a huge role in the history and culture of the country, used in sacred rituals for thousands of years, banned by the Catholic Church in colonial times as 'diabolical', re-legalised when the Spanish authorities realised that the miners needed it to enable them to put in long hours in the mines, banned again under pressure from the UN and US, and now legal again, as part of the moves by current president Evo Morales to recognise and celebrate indigenous culture.
Cocaine is illegal (and there are strict controls over the various chemicals needed to manufacture it), but the coca leaf, and all kinds of coca products, are everywhere. We are encouraged to drink coca tea to help alleviate altitude problems, and I've also had coca sweets, coca beer and coca liqueur during my one week in the country.
The process for turning a harmless leaf into a potentially deadly drug, cocaine, was discovered in the West after the Bolivians had been happily using the leaf for thousands of years, and currently the 5% of the world's population who live in the US consume 50% of the world's cocaine (according to displays in the coca museum). Perhaps, instead of trying to get Andean countries to wipe out a plant that holds such an important place in their cultures, the US could look at the conditions within their own country that lead people to make, sell and consume the illegal drug. It seems that the only downside of coca within Bolivia is the deforestation to provide more land for its cultivation. Whilst I'm sure it exists, I have so far seen no evidence of cocaine, nor of drug addicts, during my time in La Paz.
After a lunch of fairly tasty llama steak (with coca tea, of course!), I joined up with a tour group for a very strange experience - cholitas wrestling. High up in El Alto is a small sports arena, where every Sunday evening there is wrestling. Not like Senegalese wrestling where people fight to win, but rather the American version where everything is choreographed. Still, it was a spectacle. It started with men in typical wrestling attire, but then moved onto Aymara women in thier traditional outfits (although they removed their hats once in the ring). It was crazy stuff, with the 'cholitas' throwing eachother around the ring, and out of the ring, and hitting eachother over the head with trays and wooden crates, one of the referees occasionally joining in the 'fight', the crowd cheering, booing, throwing popcorn and coca cola at the contestants... and yes, if you wondered, coca cola does still contain coca leaf extract, being one of a number of multi-national organisations that are exempt from the international ban on the leaf.
