Leaving La Paz

Your standard, rammed Bolivian market

La Paz appears to be back to normal again. The streets are rammed with markets, bus loads of tourists are arriving and you can't cross the road for fear of being run over.

New people checked into our hotel (El Solario) for the first time all week and men are working to repair the ripped up cobble-stone roads (a few days ago, protesters dug them up and piled the bricks for blockades). Hell, it was even warm and sunny today.

Now that the petrol stations are open again there are huge queues for fuel, so bus services aren't back to normal yet. This means that we're stuck here until Monday, before we head to Copacabana.

Although at times things were tense and terrifying, I'm glad that we were here when La Paz was on the brink of civil war. I couldn't imagine a friendlier war zone than Bolivia! It shows the true colours of the people here, that even when they're fleeing tear gas rockets, they still have time to apologise for the mess the streets are in and ask if we need help getting back to our hotel.

We befriended a lot of people here during the trouble, such as shop owners and one person I'm particularly impressed with being on first name terms with - a witch from the witches market (you can see a photo of her here). I'm sure if we run into any other problems in South America, she can help us out by rustling up a plague of locusts, or something.

It's great to see that locals are able to earn a living again. And the sight last week of kids playing football on a street that today is once again choked with traffic, will stay with me for a long time.

From now on, we'll resume normal frequency of blog posts (one every few days), because no one wants to hear about La Paz living up to it's name (in English: 'The Peace').