Do not underestimate how altitude will affect you. It does weird things to your digestive system, it makes moving quickly an utter nightmare, and it could kill you if you aren't careful. We are 4000m up. Even though we have been following all the rules and ascending slowly (since those first tricky days in Cusco, anyway) you still notice it every so often. Turn the wrong way in bed and suddenly your lungs scream for air. Stretching is a very different experience indeed. I am doing ok, but my Diabetic girlfriend is most definitely not. My sleep pattern righted itself almost instantly in Bolivia, passing out around midnight most nights and waking around 8.30am, but even now, as I type this, Sarah is exhausted and sound asleep. It's 10.50am.
So don't push yourself and have an escape plan if things start going wrong. You need to be able to get down to a safer height at the sign of severe problems. Unlike us We're bloody stuck here. Visas. Visas visas visas. Damn it.
With both our application forms now completed we have only to get some acceptable photographs, hard copy and digital, upload them to the form, electronically sign off and print our confirmations, then print off a deposit slip, go to our local Banco Bisa in La Paz and pay our non-refundable US$160 each, type the receipt number into our online visa-application account, schedule an interview, be interviewed, surrender our emergency passports to the US authorities who will (hopefully) stick our visa into them, then we go and collect them from our local DHL office. How long will this take? How long is a piece of string?
All this to be done with Sarah who is increasingly under-the-weather. I am worried. She needs to be present for all these steps. I'd rather she just stayed in bed for a few days. She is still refusing to dabble with coca leaves, neither in tea nor being chewed. I am certain these have helped me acclimatise. Sarah is very anti-drugs, for her, like the United Nations, a coca leaf and a bag of cocaine are synonymous.
So we head out later in the morning and stop off for Sillpichs. What is a Sillpich? Its an enormous plate of potatoes (very buttery) and rice, with a huge thin steak (or chicken thing) stretched over the top, covered in tomatoes and peppers and suffocated by two frieds eggs. These are GBP2 each. TWO QUID. I accompanied it with a big glass bottle of Coke and was in hog heaven.
Naturally at this point, usually only eating one and a half meals a day, I didn't finish it.
Rounding the corner we find an AGFA shop where we get our photos taken. Clearly we were not the first people to have stepped in here needing photos for a US visa. Once again I spend my time entertaining the child of the folk who ran the place. Paid-For Childcare seems to be a filthy expression in most of South America. You just take your child to work with you. They interact with adults so much better here.
We look for an internet cafe but none will let us use our CD with our photos on it. Not only do Bolivians not seem to have a beer during the day, but they are also very security conscious. You cannot actually enter any of the little corner shops, the fronts are barricaded off. Instead you ask, like at a 24-hour garage, the attendant to bring you what you need. Doesn't bother me at all. But Internet cafe PCs are not equipped with CD / DVD drives. That is more frustrating. So we return to our hostel, upload our photos, then go out again to print everything off. This is where our problems begin.
We pick an internet place with the slowest internet in the world. Either that or everyone in Bolivia is applying for a US visa at the same time and the website cannot cope. A full 90 minutes later and we have our deposit slips printed. No words can express the drag of sitting waiting for web pages to load if you cannot remember dial-up.
It's 4.30pm. We finally locate our Banco Bisa and it's shut (naturally). That is ok because the ATM will not give me BOB$2300 anyway (the cost of both our US visas), So at least I don't feel that sort of frustration. We will have to return tomorrow.
We have little left to do but enjoy our evening. Just up the road from the bank is the wonderful Hotel Turino with wood-panelled cafe beneath. In we go and do not emerge for several hours. It is the sort of establishment where fine ideas tend to hold forth, and we discuss Plato, absolutism versus relativism, morality, literature, politics, all the gentle social subjects, and somehow I managed to polish off three or four very tasty pints of Pacena. Sarah, initially on coffee, manages a little glass of red wine. This may have been her downfall.
Once again we ascend our hill to Hospedaje Latino. Darkness has settled on La Paz and the lights of the far side of the valley speckle the view. Another productive evening of blogging and uploading follows. Somehow I manage to watch 'Julie and Julia' and find Amy Adams unattractive for the first time in my life. I don't like it. Friday will be a different kettle of fish.
So don't push yourself and have an escape plan if things start going wrong. You need to be able to get down to a safer height at the sign of severe problems. Unlike us We're bloody stuck here. Visas. Visas visas visas. Damn it.
With both our application forms now completed we have only to get some acceptable photographs, hard copy and digital, upload them to the form, electronically sign off and print our confirmations, then print off a deposit slip, go to our local Banco Bisa in La Paz and pay our non-refundable US$160 each, type the receipt number into our online visa-application account, schedule an interview, be interviewed, surrender our emergency passports to the US authorities who will (hopefully) stick our visa into them, then we go and collect them from our local DHL office. How long will this take? How long is a piece of string?
All this to be done with Sarah who is increasingly under-the-weather. I am worried. She needs to be present for all these steps. I'd rather she just stayed in bed for a few days. She is still refusing to dabble with coca leaves, neither in tea nor being chewed. I am certain these have helped me acclimatise. Sarah is very anti-drugs, for her, like the United Nations, a coca leaf and a bag of cocaine are synonymous.
This is our street, Calle Junin, and our corner. Exciting, eh?
So we head out later in the morning and stop off for Sillpichs. What is a Sillpich? Its an enormous plate of potatoes (very buttery) and rice, with a huge thin steak (or chicken thing) stretched over the top, covered in tomatoes and peppers and suffocated by two frieds eggs. These are GBP2 each. TWO QUID. I accompanied it with a big glass bottle of Coke and was in hog heaven.
Naturally at this point, usually only eating one and a half meals a day, I didn't finish it.
Rounding the corner we find an AGFA shop where we get our photos taken. Clearly we were not the first people to have stepped in here needing photos for a US visa. Once again I spend my time entertaining the child of the folk who ran the place. Paid-For Childcare seems to be a filthy expression in most of South America. You just take your child to work with you. They interact with adults so much better here.
We look for an internet cafe but none will let us use our CD with our photos on it. Not only do Bolivians not seem to have a beer during the day, but they are also very security conscious. You cannot actually enter any of the little corner shops, the fronts are barricaded off. Instead you ask, like at a 24-hour garage, the attendant to bring you what you need. Doesn't bother me at all. But Internet cafe PCs are not equipped with CD / DVD drives. That is more frustrating. So we return to our hostel, upload our photos, then go out again to print everything off. This is where our problems begin.
We pick an internet place with the slowest internet in the world. Either that or everyone in Bolivia is applying for a US visa at the same time and the website cannot cope. A full 90 minutes later and we have our deposit slips printed. No words can express the drag of sitting waiting for web pages to load if you cannot remember dial-up.
It's 4.30pm. We finally locate our Banco Bisa and it's shut (naturally). That is ok because the ATM will not give me BOB$2300 anyway (the cost of both our US visas), So at least I don't feel that sort of frustration. We will have to return tomorrow.
We have little left to do but enjoy our evening. Just up the road from the bank is the wonderful Hotel Turino with wood-panelled cafe beneath. In we go and do not emerge for several hours. It is the sort of establishment where fine ideas tend to hold forth, and we discuss Plato, absolutism versus relativism, morality, literature, politics, all the gentle social subjects, and somehow I managed to polish off three or four very tasty pints of Pacena. Sarah, initially on coffee, manages a little glass of red wine. This may have been her downfall.
Once again we ascend our hill to Hospedaje Latino. Darkness has settled on La Paz and the lights of the far side of the valley speckle the view. Another productive evening of blogging and uploading follows. Somehow I manage to watch 'Julie and Julia' and find Amy Adams unattractive for the first time in my life. I don't like it. Friday will be a different kettle of fish.
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