Week One: Arrival and Lake Titicaca

One week has now passed since I arrived in Bolivia and despite a little sniffle that I picked up over the weekend, everything has been truly fantastic so far. The streets in La Paz seem chaotic but somehow everyone arrives at their destination, people ornate their cars with curtains and flowers, and at least one lady’s full-time job is to sell just shoelaces on the sidewalk. Everywhere I looked this week, something seemed to catch my attention and I wonder now how much of this, if any, will become commonplace in the next five months.

The first thing you notice when arriving in La Paz is the mountains. First from the plane, rising far above the clouds, then like the icing on a massive multi-layered cake that is La Paz once you are on the ground. Like most cities, you can make general inferences of a person’s financial wealth by the neighbourhood in which they live. In La Paz, this can be done by looking at how far up the mountainside someone lives. The more affluent areas of the city lay at the bottom of the “cake” and as you make your way to the top of the city you see the standard of living fall quite drastically.

This past weekend (Sept. 6&7), four other Canadians and I took a trip to Isla del Sol on Lake Titicaca. We took a bus from La Paz to Copacabana and then a boat from Copacabana to Isla del Sol. At one point on the bus trip we had to cross a narrow section of Lake Titicaca. The passengers of the bus took a boat across while the bus was transported to the other side via a large raft.

The scenery on Isla del Sol was phenomenal, but it was not without its price. We hiked for three-and-a-half hours up and down steep slopes at over 3,800 meters above sea level before we reached our hotel and although the sun is extremely bright on the island, the climate is far from tropical. After everything was said and done, I ended up with sunburn on my face and a runny nose. I know, I know, poor me.

Now that I’m back in La Paz, it’s time for me to start thinking how the majority of my time will be spent in Bolivia. On Wednesday, September 10th I will be moving in with my host family and probably starting my internship the same day. At the moment, I do not have much information on either of these fronts, so I’ll have to save that for next week’s installment.

***Interesting fact: Bolivia has a naval force of 5,000 people despite having been a landlocked country for almost 130 years.***