Driving to La Paz is one of those things that I will never get tired off. Our bus from Copacobana turned out to be completely dedicated to tourists. The first leg of the journey lasted about 2 hours. After the initial bad road people were finally dozing off and falling asleep. Suddenly, the bus was stopped, everyone was woken up and told to get off the bus. Obviously confusion followed. As our guide (the same one who offered us his crappy boat earlier on that day!) explained to everyone on board, we had to get off in order to cross the lake. ¨Ok....thats fine, just drive around?!¨ Apparently the bus doesnt go around the lake but straight over it. As we were settling down on our boat that would take us to the other side of Lake Titicaca we watched as our bus, with all of our gear was driven onto a ferry. To call it a ferry is a stretch. More like planks strewn together, held by seaweed and driven by a single boat engine. Never thought I’d see a bus lolling like that. Slowly but surely it waddled its way to the beach, while all of us stood around trying to understand what just happened. 
Its hard to describe whether La Paz is a beautiful city. Its massive, sprawling, polluted and homogenous, however the drive to it is absolutely spectacular. As you come around the final hill, the entire city opens up in front of you. It looks like an enormous crater that spawned a massive city like an alien infestation. Most certainly one of the most spectacular things I have ever seen.
We stayed in a hostel just around the corner from the bus terminal, called the Adventure Brew Hostel. As per its namesake, its a brewery first and a hostel second. A dorm room costs around $4 a night which includes an all you can eat pancake breakfast and a free mug of beer at night. With 3 different beers on tap, our dinners never lacked drinking variety. They do have a kitchen that others can use, but it usually involves getting around the mess left behind by the chef. Our stay at the hostel slowly blew out to 10 days. It wasnt because La Paz was an incredible place or that we really loved our hostel. Part of it was the fact that we got sick a few times, the other part was that we were working on graduate school applications. The computer lady around the corner from the hostel probably thought that we were the strangest travelers ever. She was our silent and judging companion. We spent at least 4 to 6 hours a day for a week straight, on the computers, drinking juice and eating cheap set lunches. Those cheap set lunches were amazing at first. For 80 cents its possible to buy a large soup to be followed by an even larger plate of rice, potatoes and some form of meat. However, we quickly became bored of it. While cheap, variation was practically nonexistent. Variety costs about $4. We ran across an Israeli restaurant on Llampu st, that served amazing hummus and pasta dishes, with entre, salad, drinks and desert thrown in.
Its possible to find pretty much anything that one needs in La Paz. From pharmaceuticals that would otherwise require a prescription, to electronics for dirt cheap prices. Parts of La Paz become massive sprawling markets that eat up the streets for 7 or 8 blocks. Its a travelers paradise with cheap crafts and woven items. The same hats that we paid $4 for in Ecuador (after haggling really hard) we found for $2.50 here, as the base price. But more than that, La Paz offers unique cultural events that simply have to be explored. One such event is called Cholitas Wrestling. We had decided last minute to go and check it out. After walking into the main office and chatting to the lady (who acted and sounded exactly like Joe's Acting Agent from Friends), we were running across the city to the waiting bus that was on its way to the arena. The event itself was hilarious. For 3 hours we watched several characters battle it out. Props included chairs, corrugated iron sheets, chains, a tourist's bottle of water and our bag of bananas which ended up all around the arena bust mostly on the victims face. It was allot of fun, its definitely something that we would recommend to everyone! While another interesting thing is the road safety campaign established in the city. On certain days the city is flooded with Zebras. Unfortunately not the real thing, but these guys while directing traffic, dance and flaunt to cheer up the rather somber Bolivians. Its part of an initiative to educate drivers about giving way and to teach pedestrians about respecting road rules.
After spending too long in La Paz we decided that it was time to get out and experience the jungle. We shopped around and discovered that the majority of travel agencies booked through just a handful of tour providers. Anna and I couldnt decide on which of the tours we wanted to see. The jungle offered amazing trees, plants and bird life while the Pampas were all about crocodiles and snakes. But at the same time there are soo many agencies, all offering pretty much the same thing. One thing we did learn while in La Paz is that one should book from La Paz because its cheaper. A minimum price has been established for tours in Rurrenabaque of 900B per person by the Tourist Ministry. We settled on Fluvial Tours, not because it was the cheapest, but because it had a solid reputation. After finding their main office, it was a simple matter to get a further discount and book both of the tours for 1150 Bolivianos. To the jungle ahoi!
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