La Paz, a little disappointing.

To be honest we were quite disappointed with La Paz. We had been expecting a vibrant city with friendly people, but we found it was not and only stayed as long as we had to;  2 nights before our jungle adventure and one night afterwards. We even changed hotels on our return from the jungle as the beds in the first hotel Hotel Berlina, were just awful (broken metal coil jutting out of the mattress and ripped Ellen's leg, the hotel did not seem particularly surprised) But it did have an amazing rooftop view. We moved to Hotel Rosario and it was brilliant, great room (in fact the room we were in was the main image on their website) and great breakfast, and nice helpful staff.

Llama foetus anyone?

Arriving into La Paz is probably the most amazing thing about the city, you drive down hill into a spectacular valley of terracotta buildings. Its a sight to see and quite breathtaking.

After arriving into La Paz by bus (which was another adventure) from Puno via Copacabana, we did give the city a chance and set out to walk around the streets taking in the sounds and sights of this enormous metropolis. Starting at the Mercado de Hechiceria (witches market) filled with herbal remedies and, disturbingly, llama foetuses (apparently it is good luck to bury one under your porch, we passed), then we went to the Museo San Francisco, which was a bit disappointing really as they did not tell us when we purchased the tickets that half of the building had been closed off - and this included the section with the brilliant views our guidebook wrote of! Not to be too disappointed we headed up to the beautiful pigeon-filled Plaza Murillo, watching the kids feed and chase the pigeons which reminded us of Trafalgar Square in London, before feeding the pigeons was illegal, and then wandered the streets around this central area, then headed back over nearer our hotel to the mercado negro, a never-ending labyrinth of streets filled with stores selling everything and anything, here we picked up a few things we needed for our jungle adventure, including long-sleeved t-shirts. 

We ate twice at a great pizza place on Llampu street called Martinnis, we both got stomach bugs on our last day in La Paz so plain pizza was what we craved and so that is why we went back. Very friendly staff and great pizza's. We also ate at Kalakitas, a Mexican place which felt like we were eating in someone's living room, the food was nice but the overall experience was a little odd, but fun.