Quick facts: The seat of the government of Bolivia, but not the capital; GPS: -16.49572, -68.13355; GMT-4; Altitude: 11975′
I woke up and had breakfast at the hotel. After getting ready I headed out to catch the walking tour I had arranged. We met our guide in front of the San Francisco Church for the 10:00 tour. The first stop on the tour was the Witches Market (Mercado de Las Brujas). We went into a store where the guide told us about the significance of the mummified baby alpacas that could be seen in the store. They all died from natural causes and are sold so that people can burn them which they believe will release their souls back to pacha mama. The store sold spells, potions, and other oddities. It was interesting to see but only as a curiosity.
From there we walked through the city until we got to the next big stop. This was San Pedro prison. This is a prison that is a rarity on its own. There are no guards inside the prison and only the exterior is patrolled by police. It’s essentially anarchy but somehow it apparently works as the prisoners have established a working system to take of themselves and their needs. At one point there were even tours that were conducted until some tourists were stuck inside and embassies were involved.
The next stop we walked to was Plaza Murillo. This plaza is surrounded by several of the governmental buildings. Even though La Paz is not the capital of the country it is the seat of the government. The President also used to live in one of the building but no longer does due to safety concerns. We left the plaza and walked towards Jaen Street (Calle Jaén). This is a cobble stoned street that is representative of historic La Paz. It is also where the tour office is and the end of the tour.
After the walking tour I went to this place called, Sillpichs, for lunch that the tour guide suggested. I had the trancapecho special which is a sandwich with beef and fried eggs. It was pretty good. After lunch I walked around a mall that was nearby to kill some time before the next tour I had scheduled to go on.
Back at the San Francisco Church I met up with the next tour guide for the 15:00 cable car (Mi Teleférico) tour of the city. This was a pretty cool tour. Even though the walking tour wasn’t very physically challenging, the cable car tour allowed us to cover a lot of area of the city without any issues. The guide told us that they chose the most efficient route to cover as much as possible with the fewest lines taken.
We started at the central station and took the red line up over the cemetery to the ridge over the city. From there we walked over to another witches market which is supposedly more authentic and where the locals go unlike the one this morning which is very touristy. Afterwards we went to the silver line and rode that along the ridge down to the yellow line. This line goes over a military training area that is also nearby the new presidential residence. We connected to the sky blue line briefly before getting onto the white line. That took us to the orange line which brought us back to the central station where the tour ended. This cable car system is pretty cool and there are only a few of these in use around the world. Considering how long it takes to get around the city by car this is definitely a great alternative.
After the tour was finished I took a car to this place called, Restaurant Alaya, which was recommended by the tour guide. I ordered the fritanga per the recommendation of the guide also. The food was good, and the place looked like a spot for locals, so I was happy with the recommendation.
After dinner I got a car to go back to the hotel but there was a lot of traffic and it took him a while to arrive. After getting picked up he deviated from the suggested route and the traffic kept getting worse so after a while he said he thought it would be faster to just walk. Since it wasn’t really that far to begin with I figured that was the best option since if I had walked from dinner I would’ve been to the hotel already. It took maybe another 10-15 minutes to walk to the hotel from where I got out. It was interesting to see how busy it was getting as it got later into the night.
At the hotel I hung out, got ready for bed and fell asleep watching some animal show on TV.