Tuesday 29 December 2009
Highlights: Witches Market, San Francisco Church, La Paz Cathedral, Presidential Palace, Moon valley

Today sees us start the 3rd and last leg of the South American tour so later tonight we will met our new tour leader and two new tour members. Renato, Monica, Lance and Martin left today.

Lance, Indu, Andrew, me, Emma, Karen and Gareth booked a city tour for the day. It was good to see Karen again after she missed last night. After a small problem with me not appearing on the tour list we headed off to the Witches Market. At this time Andrew had to make an emergency trip back to the hotel, obviously the vindaloo challenge from the night before was too much!

After the market we visited the San Francisco Church which was magnificent (and dark) inside. You just have to watch out for the beggars. We got a look at the Supreme Court which at one point was a rich man’s house, then we moved onto the major square and saw the La Paz Cathedral which again was a rich man’s house (the rich had great houses in the past). From the square we also saw the Congress and the Presidential Palace (complete with Presidential Guards).

A visit to a local museum told the story of La Paz; it held some great masks used for carnival in the past. From here we drove to the Moon Valley via some rich and expensive houses.

In La Paz the rich stay in the lower part of the town, this is because it’s easier to breath, it’s warmer and more things grow, so you have the situation were ‘downtown’ is actually higher by about 1,000 metres.

The moon valley is awesome, you feel like you are on the moon, in about 60 years however it will be gone so I was glad I got to see it. After the tour ended I went and found Andrew who was feeling a little better and that our clothes had been returned and we could again sit down with our fellow tour members without causing eyes to water.