The high life

In our Lonely Planet guide book the main thing they advise you against in La Paz is to share a taxi with a stranger. They could be in cahoots with the driver, take you down an alley and force you to extract cash from your person and your bank account. So, the first thing we do is get into a taxi with a stranger. Obviously. It's 3am and I'm totally disorientated. It feels like the plane hasn't fully landed yet. It's also pretty darn cold. The taxi ride turns out ok and the Bolivian with us tells us how much of a dangerous area the airport is located in, which is why he shared the taxi with us.
At night the place looks pretty strange. The airport is much higher than the city itself so you descend sharply. The lights from the city look good spread out all amongst large mountains, it does seem an odd place to inhabit though.
We get to our hostel and eventually a decrepid old guy answers the door to let us in. Our room is basic. Also, handily enough, it's right next to the tiny living room so if anybody even so much as whispers outside you can hear them. Thankfully whispering wasn't needed as at 6am the tv was on soo loud it would prove ineffective.
I have a terrible headache and my brain feels like it's bleeding internally. This was not a nice place.
Let's have a look round.
Walking the streets you instantly realise the massive difference in population here. Over 70% of people here are of indeginous descent and certainly have a different look to their Spanish conquorers. There's also I high amount of traditional dress going on. Lots of women wear multi-coloured skirts and have a black bowler hat sitting atop their heads. They're usually carrying some large swath of multi-coloured material with varying contents within. Ranging from potatoes and fruit to clothes and babies. The place is pretty dirty and run down with seemingly no redeeming features. The locals aren't too concerned about us at least. We'd been told good things about Bolivia and that it's a great experience but so far the people have been miserable and unfriendly towards us. Not my kind of experience.
The air definitely feels thinner here and it's much harder to breath and move around. I really don't want to do anything at all other than sleep. It's supposed to take at least a couple of days to acclimatise, I don't want to stay that long.
A lot of the people probably haven't changed much in thousands of years here and that's also probably due to the fact that why would the Spanish be very interested in inhabiting such a high place? It seems odd that anyone would choose to live this high up. The surrounding mountains may look good but in general the place is a hole. Unemployment is rife too. I can't understand why anyone would willing come to live here. I'm begining to think why I willingly came here.
There's one street that has a couple of cafes that look almost ok. After avoiding food poisoning we head back to our hovel. Oh great, 3 cheery looking Irish are watching the Green Mile on tv at full blast. I fall asleep to the screams of a guy being burnt alive. Oh the joy.
That's it. I give in. That morning we leave and pay up. Ok the place was incredibly cheap, around three pounds each but I rather stay somewhere I can get some rest. We check into a lovely colonial three star hotel. Far better. From the Sheraton, to a hovel, to this happy medium. Way more expensive but worth it.
The streets near our new place are slightly improved steep cobbled affairs but still it's an absolute wrench walking anywhere.
One thing that does grate walking round is th amount of tourists taking photos of cute Bolivian children. Kids hang around waiting to be photographed for the equivalent of about 15p. Quite often they never get it and no matter how intrusive some photographers were they would not part with cash. It was sad.
We hit the net as we're short of something to do and I feel ropey as hell. This is when an american I'd avoided earlier in the day came in. He asked me if I'd been in jail with him recently. He then began going into some bull story about having nowhere to stay before I stopped him dead, 'You want money don't ya?'. 'Yes', he replied. With a wad of cash in my pocket I gave him an honest looking answer,'Sorry mate but I only carry exactly what I need when I go out'. I think if they're willing to lie to me then I have no problem in returning the favour.
I need to get out of here. Next day we leave for the small town of Copacabana on the shores of one of the biggest and highest lakes in the world, Lake Titicaca. Surely that must be better than the big smoke of La Paz. What? It's actually higher in Copacabana than La Paz? What am I doing here?