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The bus from Oruro took almost 4 hours passing stunning Andean mountains and finally descending from the Alto Plano in to the canyon sheltering La Paz. We're back in the big city with tens of thousands of houses climbing the hills surrounding the centre. La Paz is the closest we've come to a Hong Kong feel since starting our trip, there are street vendors selling anything and everything you could possibly want and all the associated sights, sounds and smells that go along with this. Our hotel: Hotel Majestic is a welcome return to first world comforts, hot strong shower, clean room, cable TV, breakfast and telephone - where back in the lap of relative luxury, all for 100 Bolivianos (US$17 ~ UK£10) per night and I guess it will come as a shock when we move on. After leaving our bags in our room we wandered down to the Plaza San Francisco to admire the facade of the San Francisco church and its interior. Catholic churches in S America are incredibly ornate with shrines to national saints containing a manequin, adorned with gold and offerings from the faithful.
After our lack of luck regarding tourist info offices we got to the La Paz office in good time to get a city map and information on tours to Tihuanaku - a pre-Inca archealogical sight to the northwest of La Paz. We celebrated our success in the TI office with a McDonald's sundae and walked back to towards the hotel, walking past artesan shops selling arts and crafts. La Paz has whole heartedly taken onboard the internet revolution with almost every street hosting several Internet cafes - so we logged on and spent the next three hours reading and replying to emails - we greatly appreciate all news from home, however small. Finally after Claire dragged me away from the cafe we had a lovely meal at a local vegetarian restaurant - trying to sort out our constitutions.
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