Aun Mas de La Paz

My second full day in Bolivia, I was feeling a lot better, so I headed out during the afternoon to visit some more attractions in La Paz with Ceci and Lu.  We took a trufi to the center of town.  I should explain about trufis.  They´re the most popular form of public transportation around here.  Basically they are shared taxi vans.  They pull up alongside the curbs and while the driver idles along, a second worker shouts out the names of places the taxi plans to go.  The route is also posted on the front of the van.  If you see one going your direction, you wave your hand and they´ll stop for a second to let you on.  There doesn´t seem to be a passenger limit other than however many people can fit inside, even if they´re not really sitting.  When you want to get off, you shout "¡Me voy a bajar en la esquina!" (I´m going to get off at the corner!) and the driver will stop and let you pay and get off.  It´s kind of chaotic, but it seems to work fairly well because it means you don´t have to wait nearly as long for public transportation as you do with a regular bus system.

First, Ceci and I visited one of La Paz´s art museums.  It was sunny while we were in the trufi, but seconds after we arrived there was a huge downpour.  The weather is crazy here.  Inside the museum, we were treated to lots of works from the 1600s to the 1800s, mostly by Bolivian artists.  Most of them were traditional Catholic religious paintings, but several had an interesting twist or two.  There were lots of symbols incorporated from indigenous religions, such as frogs, plants, feathers and demon-looking monsters.  There was also a whole set of barroque angels with guns!  I wish I could have taken a picture for my Tapico bros, they would have loved them.

After leaving the museum, we met up with Lu and wandered around the city for a while.  We saw some cool street art and went shopping in a few markets.  We went back to the witch´s market (El mercado de la hechiceria), which was much more interesting up close.  There, they sell a variety of traditional handicrafts, along with some more... specialized items, including love potions, curses, incense, and the oddest of all, llama fetuses.  Apparently, if you bury a llama fetus under your house as an offering to the Pachamama, she will keep you and your house safe.

I bought a cute little purse made of a traditional woven fabric, and then we walked over to El Prado, the main avenue in downtown La Paz.  There were quite a few skyscrapers, but also a lot of green space in the middle of the road.  We passed by the permanent encampment of human rights protesters who are demanding information about mass disappearances that took place during the 1980s, when Bolivia was under the control of a military dictatorship.  They have been there for over a year now; no answers yet.

Lu and Ceci were freezing, so we stopped at a cafe and grabbed a bite to eat.  I tried an empanada de charque, which is something like a hot pocket filled with pork jerky, and became an instant fan.  We spent the next several hours chatting until it was time to go home.  There was one more treat in store for me, though.  Ceci had purchased a chirimoya, the fruit you see here.  Apparently in English they´re called custard apples, but I have never seen them before.  They´re sooooo good; they have the creamy texture of an avocado but they´re really sweet.  Yum...