The process to get Nick’s visa took 3.5 hours. We were back and forth to and from the border office 5 times in those 3.5 hours. Each visit they would give us new information on what we needed, what was not clear enough, what was missing, etc. It was not an efficient process and we became very familiar faces at the nearby printing shop in town. Each piece of evidence needed to be printed. They are supposed to take card, but only accepted cash, which luckily we had. While in town we also exchanged some money to local Bolivian currency just in case. We learned the hard way that the American embassy website for Bolivia severely undersells what is needed for getting the visa on arrival. Once approved, we got some lomo montado for lunch from a nearby restaurant.

The street shortly past the border office had many local busses, all of which had drivers outside yelling for “La Paz, La Paz, La Paz!” I was thankful it was at least easy to find a replacement bus. It was less comfortable than the one we had booked from Puno, but wasn’t bad. Any seat without a person was filled with large boxes and bags of goods. Every compartment under the bus was the same and the roof was packed, too. The roof was so heavy that it bounced the entire drive; I was a little nervous it would cave in to be honest. At least it was cheap. We passed some small towns and there was a lot of garbage in the ditches.

Our bus did not in fact go to La Paz, but rather it stopped in the town next door instead. We found out later that where our bus stopped is not recommended for tourists. After 3 failed uber requests we walked down the street and hailed a taxi. The first one did not want to go to the center of La Paz, but our second attempt was more successful. We got all the way to our hotel. Instead of arriving at 12:30pm, as originally scheduled, we arrived at 6:00pm. Exhausted after the mildly stressful day some McDonald’s sounded perfect. I put it into google maps, didn’t notice that google made other suggestions, and navigated us to a pretty bad knock off burger spot, McBurguer. It felt like an on brand dinner experience after the day we had. At least the view from our hostel was beautiful.

It was great getting a little sleep in the first morning in La Paz after the exhausting border crossing day we had the day before. Before exploring, we had to go and exchange our US cash for some local currency. La Paz ended up being the place with the best exchange rates, but we didn’t know it at the time. If we had known we would’ve exchanged more money there. There were many little shops on Sagarnaga street and we window shopped all the sweaters. Luckily for our souvenir budget, none of the sweaters were very soft. We made our way to the Witches Market, which was small but interesting. They had dried baby alpacas and other knick knacks.

Plaza Murillo was next on our list and it was busy. La Paz was one of the busiest places we had been to on our travels so far, including India. The square was pretty with plants, a fountain, colorful buildings around, and a ton of pigeons. For lunch we had the best salteñas ever from Pacena La Salteña. We tried the chicken and the meat ones. Nick had their carrot cake and I had their passion fruit mousse, one of the best desserts I’ve ever eaten. It was like eating a passion fruit cloud. Their limeades were also refreshing. We got the last table, or so we thought. The restaurant kept bringing out folding small tables to accommodate their growing line of customers. Popular place.

The rest of our activities we got to by using the gondolas. La Paz has a pretty amazing gondola system that is used as public transit. There are multiple lines that can take you all around the perimeter of the city, to the center, and up the steep hillsides. We spent less than $10 (US) on gondola rides all day in a huge circle, which was a fantastic way to see the city from above. There were many advertisements painted on rooftops, which I thought was clever! Our route was the blue, yellow, grey, red, orange, white, and finally back to the blue line for a large circle around the city. We didn’t even ride all of the lines! We got off a few times for some sight seeing on the ground.

First stop was the Central Cemetery of La Paz. It was a great time to visit as the Day of the Dead celebrations had just taken place. Each grave was decorated with flowers, cookies, and other offerings. We’re sure the graves usually have something, but every single one (almost) was beautiful. The cemetery had rows and rows of personalized graves set in walls. The rows had beautiful murals, trees, and statues. A hummingbird enjoyed the flowers almost as much as we did. To end our cemetery walk we tried ice cream cups, which were located right outside the gate. Nick got sugar apple and I got passion fruit. They were like snow cones, but super soft.

A few stops on the gondola later and we arrived to our next stop, Jaén Street. That was an old market with colorful buildings and many shops. We browsed a colorful art gallery that was full of paintings of various places in Bolivia. At the end of the street was a small theatre that was holding a cholitas wrestling match 45 minutes after we arrived. Perfect. Our tickets included drinks, snacks, and little souvenirs. The show lasted from 4:00-6:00pm and the place was nearly full. Nick and I opted for seats upstairs to get an aerial view of the performance. It was relatively entertaining, but the crowd was not ideal. They did not make much noise, which made the whole experience a little awkward. Nick tried his best to make up for it, but that only slightly helped.

The event started with a cholita dressing up a woman from the audience in the traditional outfit. After that the first match began with each cholita picking a man from the audience to dance with her. The first man was visibly uncomfortable and tried his best with some finger snapping. The second man was born ready, jumped into the ring, and danced enthusiastically. He mimicked the cholitas sexy hip moves pretty well. The first man reminded us of our friend Jon and the second one reminded us of our friend Ted. In total there were 3 rounds between cholitas (and dirty refs). Each round had a very similar storyline where it was made obvious to the audience who to cheer for and who to boo. Nick and I agreed that 2 rounds would’ve been perfect. He got a bit cheered out by the end. Each round there were several times where the audience had to count (in Spanish) to 20 to see if the opponent would make it back into the ring in time. After the number 10 we lost a good portion of the audience. Nick did great.

Once back near our hotel it was time for dinner at Pizzeria Bella Ciao. There was a long wait, but the pizzas were delicious. We split margarita and pepperoni pizzas. The pepperoni one was actually just ham, but still delicious. A tiramisu ended our meal before heading back to the hotel. The streets were all lit up at night time.

After relaxing for some time we walked 30 minutes to the bus station for our night bus. We found our bus easily enough, but did not know we had to go to a different desk to get assigned seats. Once everyone was boarding it became obvious that we were the only ones without seats assigned. After trying to ask for help from 3 different desks, some staff member from our bus ran with me to the right desk to get our seats. It was such a dramatic way to start our journey to Uyuni. Exhausted, I curled up in my sleeping bag and ate our leftover pizza. The man in front of Nick had a broken seat so it touched his legs. I think I speak for both of us when I say we are happy we are almost done with night busses for the trip.