La Paz: "It´s not good for your health..."

Before we arrived in La Paz, a fellow traveller warned us, "They say you should buy your ticket out as soon as you arrive. It´s not good for your health..." As well as the so-called Most Dangerous Road in the World, La Paz boasts shady bars where illicit drugs are de rigeur and San Pedro prison, where regular tours run. However, we didn´t even have time to sample any of these dubious tourist delights, as we were too busy suffering from the effects of the food. I was ill on and off pretty much the entire time we spent in La Paz - as if starring in a slapstick comedy, I kept getting better then going out to eat and falling prey to the evil bacteria once more.

Luckily the hostel we were staying in was more like a home, with a massive dvd collection and a good kitchen. We eventually resorted to cooking all our meals ourselves, after an epic mission to what appeared to be the one supermarket in the city (and indeed in the country, as we didn´t find any others elsewhere). Positive remarks about the food in La Paz: we did try saltenas, the Bolivian speciality, for the first time. They are essentially the same as empanadas but a bit sweeter and incredibly juicy, making them difficult to eat. We also found an excellent chocolate shop which specialised in bonbons which by some miracle were just about the only thing we could buy which did not make us sick.

La Paz itself is a fast-paced and incredibly steep city, perched improbably on the side of a hill. It´s full of markets selling a mixture of interesting goods and touristy crap, most notably the Witches´ Market, which features llama fetuses. Postcards of La Paz usually display its colonial architecture, which indeed is awfully pretty when you notice it but most of the time is obscured by the people begging and the sheer bustle and grime of the city. Can you tell I was not overally enamoured with it?! Never mind, things got better at our next stop. Kind of.