Day 16-- la Paz and the Moon valley
Today we woke up late for the first time since I've been on this trip. We didn't have any tours planned or any bus or flight to catch. It was nice! Got the usual breakfast down at the hostel. (Always the circle bread in which I can't seem to get away from them) and it's everywhere! Peru, here, every street corner. Haha
We just started walking. Walking down the street, everyone's setting up their "market" of whatever. We go down one street and it's like Costco! Bulk size things of items that we see sold elsewhere. But it goes from cookies. Candies to shampoo, toothpaste, ramen noodles, food seasonings, brillo pads, pots and pans. I mean seriously, everything you name it, it's there being sold somewhere. I feel like it's Office Depot, Home Depot, Costco and dollar tree all over.
We were really on the hunt for breakfast/a snack of some sort. I see all these cholitas selling lechon. Uhm, deep fried pork with a side of deep fried cheese for breakfast????
Yes please!!!!
Fried queso. I can't get over it. I don't even love cheese. But I love this cheese!!
After a bit of walking through streets, we find a few more snacks like saltenas and chicharon. (Yes, more deep fried pork) haha I can hear all the arteries screaming now. Going to do a lipid fat check when I get back. It's probably crazy!
Afterward, we decide to follow a tripadvisor tip. "Jump on a local bus and go till it stops" so we did. Here in La Paz, there are a lot of busses/taxis. All shared, meaning the taxi will have 4 locations listed on the front and if that's where you want to go, you hop on! Sometimes you get a seat, sometimes you don't. The driver doesn't care, more money to him if there's more people. So there maybe 16 people packed into a tiny van or maybe you'll be lucky and get on a bigger bus, but it's still crowded. People are just out and about all day! We jumped on a random bus and it was 1 bolivianos. (Like 15 cents) it takes us uphill in this la Paz shaped bowl. At the top we get out and get on another bus than went back down. It was like almost free sight seeing. Haha. We hop onto another bus that went through maybe the "financial district" I say that because everyone in this part of town actually is dressed in office clothes and business suits. It's not as "poor looking" like the other neighborhoods. We hop into another taxi and it leads us to a really rich area. From there we take one last taxi bus to the desert moon valley. 15 bolivianos to enter the park. (About $2.20)
Valle de la lunes, is what it's called. Again, moon valley. It's awesome. About 5km outside of la Paz. There are at range art like stalagmites. It's an area that had been eroded and it's made of clay, not rock. (It started to sprinkle a little towards the end. Clay+ water = messiness) haha. It's perry cool scenery, lots of good points for pictures and just an odd thing almost random to see when you look out and and beyond the horizon, you see normal brown and green mountains. Definitely worth the odd trek we took to get here. Didn't cost us much. :)
Afterwards we headed back into la Paz downtown and went to search for something to eat. Walked through streets and streets of markets again and finally come across my favorite. "A little ghetto restaurant!" It's odd, sooo many markets and food, produce, meat, potatoes and things being sold, but no finished products! Maybe we are in an odd part of town where there's not many restaurants. It doesn't matter though, all we need is one. One cheapo awesome place! The sign said silpancho for 7 bolivianos. 7!!! That's like $1.14 !!! For a full meal. Omg. I wanted to order 3 dishes. Haha but I didn't, I stuck with silpancho becuase I know it's a Cochabamba dish. Cochabamba is another city in Bolivia, so they have their certain city dishes. So since I wasn't visiting Cochabamba, it's nice to see it here! And it was soooooo good. I can't believe I pay 12 bucks at home when I can pay 1 here!! Flattened and slightly breaded pan fried meat with eggs, potatoes and of course my favorite, a fried egg!
Did a little bit of souvenir shopping since it's my last day in the city of la Paz since tomorrow I'm headed to the amazon jungle. Bought snacks for that trip back in the "Costco" area for cheaper prices. Haha. I'm good to go. Gotta repack now for tomorrow.
Tomorrow: a flight to Rurrenabaque aka the Bolivian amazon and day 1 of the tour
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