16 October 2007 - Back to La Paz

It took us 3 hours by bus to get to La Paz from Oruro. It seemed alot longer, still couldnt believe what had happened. We kept going over the what ifs and the if onlys. We were facing a possible 2 week stay in La Paz to sort things out. The funny thing was after our last stay in La Paz i had said to Karl that 5 days was long enough and that you wouldnt want to stay any longer, how those words came back to haunt us!!

We arrived in La Paz at around 9pm looking for a half decent hotel for the night. Luckily for us the first hotel we tried had a room available. Karl haggled over the price of the room, explaining what had happened. I started crying and she agreed to Karls price, the water works came in handy.

The room was really spacious double and single bed, private bathroom with 24 hour hot water and satellite tv all for 3 pounds each a night. Bargain.

Our time in La Paz was mostly spent going back and forth to either the british embassy, qantus office, immigration office and ringing home.

If it hadnt been for the help of our families transfering money over to us via the western union bank to keep us going we dont know what we would have done!! The people at the western union got to know us quite well after 5 visits, they were really helpful and it was a weight off our minds having access to money.

It took 4 days to get our temporary passports at a cost of 70 pounds each. They will last us a year. Our round the world tickets cant be sorted out till we get to Chile and our bank cards are on order back home. Just typical that there would be a postal strike on when we need them urgently!!

La Paz was getting to us now so we decided we needed to get to Rio and fast. When discussing the details with the travel agent he informed us that we would need our yellow fever certificates to get into Brazil. Wonderful the only thing i hadnt scanned onto the computer. He infomed us of a medical centre where we could get it done, he flagged us a taxi as we only had 20 mins to get there and in La Paz traffic it was a close call. We made it and instantly decided we were not having an injection in there!! It was not the cleanest or tidiest medical centre in the world and the man that greeted us looked like something out of the addams family!! While we were waiting our turn, a boy came out of the treatment room with a blood stain on his sleeve the size of a golf ball!! Injection...........NO WAY. When it was our turn we explained to the doctor what had happened and that we only wanted the certificate and not the injection. He happily agreed charging us more than twice the price and gladly popping the money into his top pocket. We were just glad to get out injection free!!

Once we got back to the travel agents things were still not simple. It would take 4 flights and 370 dollars to get to Rio. We just wanted to go so the prospect wast that bad. The travel agent was German, his mannerisms were like a seargeant major, shouting when he talked. We nicknamed him Hitler. He was helpful though even if he did make our heads spin with 20 different ways to get to Rio. At least now we had something to look forward to.

We watched the England v France rugby game in an English bar called Olivers Travels. Victory was sweet especially as i had the most annoying French frog sitting next to me. We did enjoy rubbing it in as he was sure France would win. England in the final......COME ON.

We visited San Pedro prison as it was the only thing we didnt do last time we were in La Paz. It was in the centre of the city which was wierd and it was surprisingly small for how many prisoners were probably in it. We had a look through the main gates and there were lots of inmates standing in a courtyard. We saw a westerner in there and the next thing we knew there was a young boy handing us a piece of paper. It said " Hello im Sebastian im from Holland please can you help me with some food thank you so much please call me" and he had put a number on there. There was a cue of people at the prison with bags of food and bits to give to there family or friends on the inside. They were just passed through the gates one at a time. We thought it looked a bit dodgy and our gut feeling was not to do it even though i did feel sorry for him. It certainly was something to witness.

Our 10 days in La Paz have come to an end and our new adventure in Rio is only hours away!! Bring it on!!