Giant Slides and Other Adventures

Hi ho, Stewart Prest here from Bolivia. I’m still a bit behind on my updates — the pictures I’m including in this post actually came from an adventure during our first weekend in La Paz. That Sunday, Manuela and I took it upon ourselves to prove that we had fully adjusted to the altitude by climbing up to every hilltop viewpoint in the entire city. By and large, we made it unscathed, with no cases of the Bends or collapsed lungs to report. What follows are a few of the pictures from the trip.

First, we visited a kids’ park in the middle of the city called Parque Laikacota. It gave a good ‘theatre-in-the-round’ view of the city, along with a neat snapshot of your average Bolivian family outing, complete with balloons, Barney the Dinosaur (who’s almost as popular here as Professional Wrestling — go figure), and a giant slide that I really really wanted to go on, but didn’t out of fear that I’d crush a small child. I should point out that I feel unnaturally large even among Bolivian adults. The average height seems to be about 5′ 6, give or take. I tried to buy shoes the other day, and the largest size in the first pair I asked about was 5 sizes smaller than what I needed. But I digress.

The second view point we hiked up to is called Mirador Killi Killi. It’s quite a ways up the hillside, and offers a spectacular bird’s eye view of the city and surrounding mountains. The picture below shows the downtown area of the city, with the suburb of El Alto (home to the airport and some of the poorest neighbourhoods in the city) just visible in the distance (by the towers on the ridge of hills on the right-hand side of the picture). El Alto is a place I hope to learn more about; until I do however, I won’t write more about it — I’d hate to write something misinformed.

This final picture was actually taken from our apartment.  It captures La Paz by night, and offers just a glimpse of Illimani, a breathtaking mountain in to the southeast of La Paz.  The mountain has a cool Mount Olympus vibe, as it is usually shrouded in cloud (the perfect getaway for the retiring deity).  When visible though, it is gorgeous and jarring, a flash of white snow looming above the brown and red hills surrounding La Paz.

That’s it for now.  Tune in again next time, when I talk about our visit to the Valle de la Luna!