Sunday was a day of exploration, a rare opportunity to wander the streets and find out what goes on in La Pazzzzzz ouside of our well-trodden route down Calle Junin and onto Av 6 de Agosto down to Av Arce and the streets that run off it holding the whole basin of the valley together (not to mention al the nice houses down there). Not that we didn't just walk down Calle Junin, but this time crosses that road and wandered back up the valley, hopefully away from tourists and into what appeared to be a Bolivian version of Nutt's Corner market.
Sarah takes pictures of people and she takes pictures in portrait. I take landscape pictures of landscapes. You can spot the difference easily.
People feed pigeons down here. Are they just shared public pets? Why don't people realise how disgusting they are? Some of these pigeons even look healthy for God's sake!
At Alexander Coffee we partook of breakfast. Sarah has by now given up on the meagre platter offered up in Residencial Latino and just has a lie-in instead. Here we had a tasty plate of huevos rancheros (ranch-style eggs, which I often make at home, a tortilla with two fried eggs on top, salsa, fried green jalapenos) and a big cup of coffee which here is cafe destilado, filter coffee, followed by a cinnamon swirl. Sarah attempted to eat this piece of chocolate cake after her burrito but, naturally, I manned up and finished it. I'm good that way.
So... here I am beside a Churchill dog and I'm pouting? Who could I be? QUACK QUACK!
So we went a-wandering, and this is what we saw...
A dog dressed for a party (in winter)...
You can buy almost anything at this market. I treated myself to some Lacoste polo shirts, admittedly a little baggy but also GBP7 each. I could have had all the kitchen roll, copied DVDs, soap or tooth brushes, fresh orange juice, glittery jeans, pots and pans (and kettles), leather jackets, chocolate or biscuits, so on and so on, I could have dreamed of. Natually anything we looked at would be priced double what the locals were paying. Its a fact of life you get used to down here. Yet your shopping needs are different, and at the end of the day its not as if you're buying the world. We bought two bars of soap for about 80p. I can do that in the Pound Shop (almost, tho not quite)!
Sarah is confident that, as and when her dad sees this photo, that there will be new stalls open at Nutts Corner and also on the Twelfth.
Yes! Crusader tea!
Spuds! Oh so many spuds!
We walked our legs off, up a lot of hills and back down on the next street. Every time we got up a hill Sarah's head was pounding. We walked to the edge of the market where there were definitely no white faces, so we walked back again. Then we walked around the Witches' Market.
The Witches' Market exists to satisfy demand for weird products which still have an active place in the lives of the Andean population. Sacrifices and tributes to Pachamama, the earth goddess, are still made, at least on a monthly basis and especially in August. A table of offerings is set out perhaps consisting of sweets, other foods, brightly coloured wrappers, drinks, coca leaves, and burned. Some of the more unusual tributes need to be picked up at the witches market. These include llama or vicuna fetuses.
To the best of my knowledge, in Peru these were traditionally buried at the bottom of mountains in offering to the gods which resided within. In a lot of South America you get used to folk having more sophisticated and modern lives. In the Andean regions, particularly around the Peruvian / Bolivian border, you realise some very ancient beliefs are alive and well and in daily practice.
Anyway, its all very interesting but, once again, to get the most out of this you would need to be fluent in a couple of languages and have an in-depth understanding of the iconography of the Incan and pre-Incan civilisations here to really spot the difference between this statue and that statue At the end of the day, you're being sold tat you don't understand by people who, mostly, know that the tourists are buying cute statues and that their beliefs are a million miles away from what the statues represent. It all feels very superficial, again, and it is up to you whether you take this opportunity to read up further on what are the realities of Andean life, or you choose to blindly accept the symbolism of this little man or condor made of stone.
This was pretty nasty...
... so we went walking down around the nice part of town and accidentally discovered a big fair in the park!
This is the municipal archaeological museum. Sadly closed, otherwise we would have been all over this like a rash.
KILLER! WE DID NOT GO IN HERE!
The view of Mount Illimani as the sun slowly sets over La Paz...
Plaza Murillo, again. We walk through it every day and its always got something happening.
This is the piranha on top of the PC that I'm typing on right this moment...
The day goes in quickly when you have so much to look at, and when we head back home around 7pm it doesn't take too long for us to get hungry. I am blogging downstairs when I receive Sarah's message that her stomach is talking to her, so its another jaunt across the road to Chely's Cafe, where a big party is in full swing, eight people filling the little sitting area inside, and I leave with two double-burgers this time. Needless to say, Chely and his missus make a damn good burger.
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