La Paz and Out

We arrived in La Paz this morning.  The airport is at 12,000 feet but our hotel is in the valley.  I have to admit that I am looking forward to getting out of the high altitude.  It's weird because you can just be sitting and all of a sudden your heart will start racing and you'll be gasping for air.

Butch and I are not crazy about La Paz but part of that can be attributed to us just being done with traveling.  I like to do 4 things and this is our 5th so we are tired.  The traffic in La Paz is off-the-charts horrible and when coupled with the city sitting in a valley between very high mountain ranges makes the air thick with smog.  The city consists of steep hill after steep hill. Imagine San Francisco but with worse traffic and 1000s of feet in changes in elevation.

Because of the traffic, they have recently installed cable car lines to take you from the higher parts to the lower parts.  We rode in the cable car from the area around the airport down to the city center. Cable Car - yet another first for Butch.

Views of La Paz from the cable car




We were supposed to have a full day tour but Butch and I cut it short at lunch.  We saw the zebras which anyone who watches Jon Oliver is now familiar with.



Our hotel is in what our guide calls the "Beverly Hills neighborhood" of La Paz.  The hotel and the neighborhood are quite nice.



Butch and I went for a long walk.  We stopped to look at the new Ford Rangers that are available here but not yet in the US.  We had a nice chat with the salesman about cars in the US vs. South America.


Our driver is picking us up at 3 am tomorrow morning to begin the long 4 airport journey home. La Paz might be the capital city but Santa Cruz has the bigger airport so all flights out of Bolivia stop in Santa Cruz.  American Airlines is already warning us about the bad weather expected in the northeast on Saturday.  We hope to at least make it to Miami before getting stuck.  Wish us luck.

Check in tomorrow for the trip summary

Here's a bonus video of the Uyuni Salt Flats


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