Thursday, Sept. 25, 2003 - 3:20 p.m.
Road Blocks & Where To Go
The day after biking Death Road I spent all day in bed. I had a headache, felt nauseas and tired. I feared I might have Malaria from the jungle (I was unable to get anti-malarial medicine in La Paz prior to my trip). Or maybe I had heat stroke or heat exhaustion from the bike ride. Caroline said "You worry too much" and I had to agree.
I finally forced myself to get out of bed at 6:30PM to get some dinner. I didn't feel like eating much, but I went to the El Lobo restaurant and had some fruit salad and ice cream, the only thing that seemed appealing to eat at that time.
The next day I slept in again, although I felt better than the day before. I was in e-mail contact with my ozzie friends, Callie, Corey and Trent and wanted to meet up with them since they were also in La Paz, but we kept missing each other.
That evening I also watched a little bit of the news on TV at the hostal. They showed Sorata, the gun-strapping protestors, the and burned remains of the hotel. For the first time, instead of just hearing about the protests, I saw actual proof of it.
I had lunch with Caroline and through casual conversation found out that she also knew Sue, the Australian woman that I'd met in Rurrenebaque. Caroline had planned to meet Sue in Rurre and went to Corioco by bus, but was unable to go any further because of the protests and had to return to La Paz.
Later on that afternoon Sue returned to La Paz and the hostal. We learned that she had been stuck in Rurre because the airport runway was rained out.
I was trying to figure out where to go from La Paz and was thinking about going to Oruro, mainly to break up the long bus ride from La Paz to Uyuni, where the world's largest salt flats are. I also considered going to Potosi, where there are silver mines you can tour. At it's height of silver mining (maybe the 18th century), Potosi was the largest city in the Americas, having a population the size of London. It also boasts of being the world's highest city at 4070 meters!
I debated what to do. The next day was a big Jewish holiday, like the Jewish New Year. There would be a big celebration at El Lobo and I knew that Efrat, Eadid, Oshra, and Inbar would be there. I figured it would be fun to take part in the festivities and experience a little more Jewish culture.
I got an e-mail from my ozzie friends, Callie was going to Rurre to the jungle, Corey and Trent returned to Cusco via plane. I was sorry that I wasn't able to se them again. It turned out that the three of them had been stuck in Copacabana for several days due to the road blocks. When they finally were able to take a bus to La Paz they had a crazy experience of having to help move rocks from the road so the bus could pass and at one point a mad mob came running towards them, ran onto the bus, grabbed the bus driver and pulled him out to the road to beat him up! Their 3 hour bus ride turned into something like 7! They arrived into La Paz at like 5 in the morning and Corey and Trent decided to get out of Bolivia while they still could!
