The "highway" toward La Paz was mostly under construction and the 130km took me around 2-3 hours. I was confused to see so many brick houses unfinished, so many parts of the road under construction but with no workers, and bridge projects merely started, but seemingly left unfinished. Also along the way, I saw many women working in the fields, families moving their animals to / from the fields, a life style that requires a completely different approach and attitude than what I think most "westerners" are used to.
When I arrived at the outside neighbourhoods of La Paz, I noticed a significant increase in cars, pedestrians, and unfinished brick houses. When I had arrived to what seemed as a market, I almost started to panic as a cultural shock of the (to me) poor condition of the people, all the unfinished brick buildings around, and a over-swelled road with traffic and pedestrians that concerned themselves with nothing but their own business. I obviously had given no thought to how Bolivia could be different from Uruguay, Argentina, and Chile, but here it caught me right up front. - I patiently dealt with it as well as I could till I arrived to La Paz.
 |
| View of La Paz |
La Paz did not seem to improve things in my mind, and I must admit I was considering just passing through (if I could ever have found the exit). When I approached the city from above the valley, I witnessed a sea of brick buildings covering the entire valley up to the rim of the neighbouring mountain tops. The seemingly unstructured and enormous city harboured a traffic flow acting similarly to a stream as it evades rocks, cuts turns, ever seeking the shortest route along its path. Very luckily I found storage for my bike and accommodation for myself, so that I could begin to deeper discover this new world I had arrived at.
 |
| La Paz |
I must speak out to fellow motorbike travellers, unless you are already familiar or comfortable driving in "chaotic" cities such as Lima (Peru) and La Paz, take caution, or arrange a different way of visiting these cities (ex. store your bike in a nearby city, and take the bus).
No comments:
Post a Comment