La Paz, Bolivia

Arriving early in the morning, we find a hotel and I head out alone into ¨the Witch's Market¨-- an orgy of street commerce where anything and everything is for sale, if you can find it. A common area between buildings, overflowing with fruit (fresh from the jungle) vendors; a street devoted entirely to shirts (pro wrestling shirts are big here, but dress shirts are everywhere also); a back alley with dozens of stalls selling blue jeans. It has a rough system of organization-- our hotel is near the ¨lights district¨and so when we walk out at night, the corner is lit up entirely with lights for sale-- but in the morning after a long bus ride, it just seems like chaos. People are packed into the road, the sidewalks covered with little makeshift stalls, and two-way traffic honking at whoever dares get in the way. After a while you get used to brushing up against buses struggling up the steep hills. After a while you get used to people trying to hawk everything from toilet paper to range ovens. It´s fun, in a dizzying kind of way.

Later in the day, we take a taxi almost to the summit of Mt Chacaltaya, and then ascend the last hundred meters or so in a breathless line. It seems like cheating, but when you´re 17,388 feet above sea level you don´t care; doing anything at this elevation is hard work. After an easier descent, we buy our driver lunch and then swing by ¨Valley of the Moon¨-- not to be confused with the different valley of the same name in Chile-- to see the sandstone formations. More impressive than the park itself is the drive through La Paz to get there. Built on a plateau that spills over into a daunting valley, there are thousands of red brick homes clinging to the cliffsides. Then there are sheer red cliffs and sandstone tunnels, all practically within the downtown area; probably the most beautiful city I´ve seen so far.