LOOKING AROUND LA PAZ

MONDAY 4th JULY

  Happy birthday Ian!

  Got up in time for breakfast at 9.00am and then asked where the nearest Post office was to be found.  They showed me on a map, it was in the town centre and involved something of a walk up hill.  The receptionist asked if I would like a taxi, but I declined.  A man who has walked most of the way to Machu Pichu cannot really lower himself to catching a cab to the Post Office in La Paz even if it is 13,450 ft high.  I walked at a slow measured pace and came across the Plaza Murillo. No Plaza de Armas here.

The Plaza is named after Pedro Domingo Merrillo who was a Bolivian freedom fighter and met his end at the end of a rope at this place in 1810 at the age of 51.  One one side of the square is the Palacio de Gobierno (Presidential Palace) with the Guards in their colourful 19th century uniforms.

The square is also surrounded by the Palacio Legislativo (Congress) and the Cathedral.

I turned left at the Plaza and headed down hill to Mariscal Santa Cruz where the main Post Office is located.Amusingly all the road crossings in the area were manned by people in zebra costumes, imperiously stopping the traffic and escorting pedestrians across the road!  In the Post Office there was hardly a queue!

The two customers in front of me were dealt with in no time, and I soon had the stamps for my postcards.  I was about to leave in search of a postbox when the attendant stretched her had out for them.  As it was I couldn't see any post box so I gladly handed them over.  I noticed a coffee area in one corner of the large post office hall which was also labelled as "WiFi".  Not that I had my computer with me, however a cuppa coffee was a welcome thought.  As I sat there sipping my cafe con leche, a technician came up to the ATM that was a bare 10 metres from me, escorted by two uniformed armed men toting sub-machine guns.  I just hoped nobody was planning a raid, because I'd be flat on the floor in an instance!

  I set off back to the hotel along an alternative route thanks to the map provided by the bank, which gave me a view of some of the surroundings.

  After returning to the hotel I decided to have some lunch, and although they had some buffet lunch on offer, I had set my heart on a mushroom omlette, which is what I had along with a Huari beer, which tasted very different to most of the South American beers I had tasted.  My plans to update the blog/watch the TV were thwarted for a while by a power cut, but happily the power returned.  I hope to update all the blogs from Puno onwards now that I have sorted the problem with downloading photos.

  I checked my flights for tomorrow and discovered I arrive in Lima around 9.40am and depart 21.50pm.  Thank heavens I've got access to two Lounges with my Priority Pass!