The 2 and a half hours bus ride from Copacabana to La Paz took over 5 hours as the Tiquina pass -which the bus has to cross on a barge- was to windy and dangerous. We reached La Paz in the night, pretty tired, only to find out that the room Mary had booked in a hostel had been taken by someone else! So we ended up in a shared room with bunk beds, with our french travel companions.

The weather in La Paz kept changing from rain to sun but in spite of what some people had told us about Bolivia and its capital city, we had a great time there.

We went visiting the witches market where they sell dried baby lamas (😱) -supposedly lucky when you burn them 🫣- and all kinds of lucky charms and sensual perfumes!

We also did the -now traditional- cable car tour overlooking the giant city, notably the colourful Bario Alto.

Last but not least, we went to see a Cholitas match: female wrestling in traditional bolivian attire! Of course awfully fake but very entertaining! By some strange malediction though, my memory card got corrupted and all my Cholitas pics are lost! 😭 (the card seems to work fine since then, but it scares me that it might happen again!)

My plan was simply to continue to Uyuni by bus and book a tour to the salar from there, but Mary insisted that the tours booked from La Paz were more reliable, so we did that and booked from our hostel.

I had once told Mary about how fancy and comfortable the buses in latin america were, from my travel experience in Argentina. But since Mexico down, we’ve only seen basic -uncomfortable- buses. This time it was different : our night bus from La Paz to Uyuni was a proper, spacious, two-stories, comfortable « semi-cama » and with a wifi connection that worked for at least 20 minutes! I had not dreamt, they do exist.