Figuring out La Paz

We decided to move to a different hostel since the hotel we were staying in was a bit pricy. Alyssa had found one online called "Adventure Brew" (it has its own brewery called "Saya" and they give you a free beer every night of your stay) so we made a two night reservation over there for $160 soles/night. The hostel was very nice and we got our own three bed room with private bath. Once we had our things in order, we decided to cruise around the city to check out some travel agencies and book our Salar de Uyuni tour (Bolivia's salt flats). We also knew that we would need to purchase big jackets since we really only had thin running jackets and windbreakers which would not provide the amount of warmth we would need for the tour. The guy who worked at our hostel pointed us towards a part of town where he said we would be able to find jackets at a more reasonable price (the ones we had seen on our walk to Adventure Brew were more expensive than in the states!).

We were able to find a jacket kiosk and they patiently waited as we tried on all of their styles, sizes and colors. I have very long arms since I'm so tall which made my selections limited since usually bigger jackets have longer arms but then they were huge on me. We finally found two that would work and were able to get each of them for $28 USD- not bad!

After finding our jackets, we brought them back to the hostel and I booked my tour for the "death road" the following day. The death road is a biking tour down the world's most dangerous road, which is just outsideof La Paz. Alyssa had decided she did not want to go, so I signed up to go by myself.

We continued to walk around town, taking in the sights and checking out tour agencies along the way. La Paz was much different in the light of day and I really liked how non-touristy it was. Everyone just went about their business, unconcerned about what the two tourist girls were doing. There are tons of local markets and street vendors which are awesome to walk around and so cheap! Bolivia is definitely the cheapest country we've been to so far.

It seemed that the English speaking tour company we had heard the most about, "Red Planet", was booked for the next few days which meant we'd have to spend a lot more time in La Paz than we'd intended to if we went with them. We decided against that since we have limited time and opted for a Spanish speaking, cheaper tour instead that would transfer us to San Juan de Atacama, Chile at the end of the trip.

After a long day of walking the town, we showered and got ready for the evening. It is fairly cold in La Paz, so we were happy to have our new, warm jackets. We started off the night by getting our free beer from the hostel which was actually pretty good!

We then headed to a Mexican food restaurant we had read great reviews about on Trip Advisor called "Kalakitas". It was an awesome little "Day of the Dead" themed restaurant with good food and drinks. Sadly, I was already buzzed after the beer (I am chalking it up to the altitude not the fact that I am now a lightweight) so the margarita was enough for me to decide I was cut off. After all, I was cycling down the death road early the next morning and it would be good to have my wits about me.

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