Welcome to Bolivia

2 days without sleep and I have been running on empty since my 6am arrival in La Paz. Still have yet to be let into a room in this little backpacker's hostel, which meant l had one of two options today: sit with my bag in the cold little hostel or leave my bag with all the other unattended bag to wander around the city. I chose option #2, which despite my exhaustion, proved to make for a lovely day of meandering through the streets without any particular destination. I found my way to a vibrant little market, the streets lined with people selling fruit, vegetables etc. A few great pictures that were not meant to be. I happened upon one of the main cathedrals and enjoyed some quiet time inside. I walked slowly to enjoy watching the city come to life as it got later in the morning, but also to catch my breath. The airport is at 14,000 feet here and the city is probably a good 12,000 ft. The city is beautifully tucked in between the mountains. I bought bananas, avocados, oranges, and some other fruit that I don't know the name of and made myself a delicious lunch back at the hostel before heading out again.

I ran into a protest on the main avenue. Not sure what it was about, but apparently protests are the norm. There are tons of women dressed in their traditional clothing - long braided hair and colorful blankets on their backs to carry things. Some where these little top hat things that I've never seen before. An interesting look. At one point this afternoon one of these beautiful little women ran into me and then kept bumping into me acting clueless, like she was old and lost. I did note that it was kind of weird, but didn't notice until a few moments after that my bag was open and camera gone. She was a pro. Well done little old lady. I was a little nervous about my camera breaking during this trip as every time I take a picture with the flash smoke comes out of it... I can't decide whether or not I hope that it explodes when they take their first picture. At a lose for what to do at the moment except laugh it off... because really... Andrea misses her connecting flight and is coming a day later, I've been a zombie wandering around the streets all day not allowed to check into my room yet, and my camera is already gone. It hasn't even been 24 hours! Welcome to Bolivia, where the grafiti at the airport reads "yankees go home and USAID go home"... despite it all, La Paz really is a beautiful city. Hopefully our rough start was just our way of getting the minor disasters out of our system so that the rest can all go as planned. Ha, right!