Michael: An astounding place

The nature of GSE is the constant introduction of new people into our lives. We have house hosts for each city, changing every 5-6 days. Then we have daily hosts who usher us from place to place. Some days we have good drivers and some days less good. Yesterday, Doug and I had a good one. His name was Miguel and he is a Rotarian and civil engineer.
It was Easter Sunday (Happy holiday, everyone), and it was a day for us to be tourists. In the morning, we drove out of the bowl that contains La Paz on the only real highway connecting the city to the new city on the rim, El Alto. As the city grew and filled the bowl, El Alto grew around the airport high on the rim.
La Paz is a city of around 850,000, officially located in the valley of Chuquiago Marka. The elevation is listed at 12,000, but it varies all over the deeply corrugated landscape. There are many high-rise buildings (up to 30 stories) and many modern features. The weather varies by location, but is generally warmer than the surrounding countryside.
El Alto grew from around 650,000 ten years ago to around 900,000 now, making it one of the fastest growing cities in South America. It sits on the Altiplano at 13,600 feet of elevation and is typically always cold. It has an endless sprawl of low (2-3 story) buildings and the people are mostly indigenous and poor. The Altiplano is a huge high-elevation plain, the largest in the world outside of Tibet, and Bolivia’s most unique feature. The south Altiplano is marked by the Salar de Uyuni, the salt flat we visited earlier and in the north by Lake Titicaca, our ultimate destination for the day.
After making our way through light traffic in El Alto, we stopped in tiny village called Laja, which was the original city of La Paz. When the Spanish Conquistadors found gold on the stream in Chuquiago Marka, they moved the city there to its present location. Today’s village of Laja contains a nice cathedral, which was empty this Easter morning.
We then spent several hours at Tiwanaku, where there was an impressive ruin of a pre-Inca community. Too much to write about, but Wikipedia has this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiwanaku.

Then our entourage of our team, plus Pedro, Renzo, and Nicholas (from the inbound team), Renzo’s girlfriend, Miguel, another Rotarian driver whose name I can’t remember, and Joanne White who was Nicholas’ host from Wintergreen, had lunch in the town, where for the first time I had llama meat. We then took a leisurely boat ride on Lake Titicaca, the largest lake in South America and at 12,500 feet, the highest commercially navigable lake in the world. Low hills framed the western shore and immense snow-capped mountains framed the east. Gorgeous!
The drive home was most memorable.
Miguel and I chatted in the front while Doug listened to music in the back seat. We talked mostly in English, his English being better than my Spanish. He said his work took him all across his country and he was familiar with perhaps 60% of the country’s roads. He admitted how difficult it was to be a good driver in Bolivia. On this rural road, cars were constantly stopping to take on passengers. There were stray dogs everywhere. A cow ran across the road. We were constantly weaving around pot-holes and pavement imperfections. It was tiring for him, but he said he was used to it. Bolivia’s first 4-lane highway is now under construction from La Paz to Oruru, our next and final host city.
As we spoke, dark clouds loomed overhead, but the sun illuminated one of the snow-capped peaks. Miguel stopped the car on the busy 2-lane road so Doug and I could run across the highway and snap some photos, one of which is yesterday’s post. Beside us as we took the picture there was a huge pile of mostly burned rubbish; a strange juxtaposition of beauty and trash.
We continued into the metropolitan area, with increasing traffic of people returning home from the holiday weekend. With no limited access roads like our interstate highways, movement slowed to a crawl. Miguel left the main road and wound us through the neighborhoods of El Alto. Many buildings looked to be under-utilized or under construction, at least on the top floor or two. There were several outdoor markets, still vibrant in the early night-time. At one point, in the center of a traffic circle, there appeared to be a concert or festival concluding. Two men, one apparently quite drunk, wandered into the street, where the inebriated fellow bounced off the side the slow moving car in front of us. We eventually reached the edge of the canyon rim, where El Alto gave way to La Paz. The great city loomed before us in a sea of lights, both blue-white and yellow, flowing over the hills below. The road made an endless series of tight, twisting switchbacks, winding downward. Miguel pointed out where a landslide had occurred decades earlier, with dozens of fatalities. The further we descended the taller and more modern the buildings became. It was spell-binding.
Miguel took us to the door of our guest home and promised to see us again in a few days. The adventure continues in this astounding place.