We've spent three days in La Paz, with the main goal of souvenir shopping. (La Paz is the best city in South America for souvenirs). We just bought a large sports bag in the Mercado Negro to pack them up for out flights. Right now we're sitting in the 3rd floor lounge at our hotel (Hotel Rosario), with a great view of the city and Mt Illimani (6402m).
La Paz is one of the more amazing cities to see. It sits in a crevice in the Altiplano, a city of a million people up and down all around. In the middle, where we are now, all you can see are buildings climbing up the sides at extreme angles near the top, almost like you're in the middle of a sphere with the city wrapped completely around you.
Unfortunately we didn't get a view of La Paz on our flight from Sucre. We could see the road winding through the mountains, and were glad we took a 45 minute flight rather than a 12 hour bus ride.
I had arranged for the hotel to send someone to pick us up at the airport, but there was no one there, so after waiting for 30 minutes we took a taxi. (There was another couple at the airport in the same position, different hotel).
We're staying at Hotel Rosario, close to the main tourist shopping areas. The hotel room is good, the service is amazing. The front desk staff have been great at recommending restaurants, making reservations, etc. When we get taxis, they flag them down and then record the taxi driver's name and taxi number to prevent any problems.
We spent our first two days shopping along Calle Linares and Sagárnaga. Most of the stores sold the same clothing, jewelry and stone carvings. But every here and there was a store with cool stuff, antiques such as walking sticks, wooden stirrups, weights; or unique jewelry; or traditional masks. We bought quite a bit (thus the need for the extra bag to get them home).
There weren't many artists' stalls. We stopped in at the three we saw. We particularly liked one painter, Gustavo Apazo, from whom we bought a oil-on-canvas. Today we visited the Museo de Arte Contemporáneo, which has an exhibit on the top floor with local artists' works for sale, and saw some of Gustavo Apazo's paintings! We actually recognized his style, and then saw his signature. The prices in the gallery were much higher than what we paid at his workshop, so we were glad we stumbled across his stall.
We've been having the set menus for lunch, which have been okay. Breakfasts have been great at the hotel -- tasty fresh fruit, amazing bread, eggs to order. For dinner, we've been trying out the fancier restaurants, a taxi ride across town to Sopocachi (a much hipper area than where we're staying). Eating at the best restaurants in La Paz, including a bottle of wine, and tip, comes to about $40 - $60, so we figured why not.
We ate our our hotel the first night, we had just arrived and hadn't yet got a feel for the city. Plus our hotel restaurant is listed as one of the top in La Paz. We weren't too impressed -- Heather's trout (from nearby Lake Titicaca) was overdone and dry; my lasagna was okay.
The second night we ate at El Arriero, an Argentinian steak house, which was excellent. Both our steaks came medium rare as requested (tres-cuatros in spanish), the wine was great, and the service was good. It was one of our favourite meals in Bolivia.
Last night we tried out a french restaurant, La Comédie. Our taxi driver couldn't find the place, I had to show him the LP map on my iPhone (we downloaded the La Paz chapter). The atmosphere was great, but the food was not that good. My lamb shank was so dry I had trouble cutting a bite, and Heather's duck was competing with my lamb for toughness, and salty. They appeared to substitute quantity for quality -- I had three (!) lamb shanks on my plate, Heather had two (!) duck breasts. Maybe we ordered the wrong stuff, but both were listed as chef specialities.
Tonight we're trying out Pronto Dalicatessen, rated #1 in La Paz by tripadvisor (although not so much a foodie site as chowhound).
Today we did some touristing, haivng been shopped-out over the past two days. First went to the Contemporary Art Gallery, as mentioned above. It's in a gorgeous old house on El Prado (the main street that runs down the middle of La Paz). It reminded us of the occasional grand old house on Jarvis or Sherbourne.
Next we walked up to Plaza Murillo, which is surrounded by the main government buildings and the cathedral. We saw the sights just in time before being booted out by the police, who were closing down the plaza in advance of a demonstration (which are almost a daily occurrence here -- this is the 2nd we've seen). Later as we ate lunch, we saw the demonstration by miners carried live on the local TV station. It was odd to hear the bangs of dynamite (we thought it was firecrackers) on tv, then the echo in real life. There was no danger, as we were away from the action.
Yesterday in the market, I almost got peed on by a little boy. We were walking along in the busy street, I was taking in the scene, when Heather blurted at me to look out. The little boy was peeing in the street, I had just enough reaction time to step over and not get hit. The local lady behind us couldn't stop laughing. A couple people behind us who didn't notice walked right through. Too bad for them.
Well we're off to get ready for dinner. Tomorrow we fly to Santiago, our last stop on our little trip.
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