March 12- Venturing Out

I woke up at 7 AM after 10 hours of sleep.  I needed that.  I decided to set out on my own for a street with several museums.  The Museum of Precious Metals, my main interest, was closed according to their Web site, but the Ethnological Museum looked interesting.  It required the use of the Teleferico, a system of gondolas over the “bowl” of La Paz.  A member of our group had said that it was very easy to navigate and I found the station with no trouble.  I looked all over for a system map, couldn’t find one, but the ticket agent and another worker helped me and- surprise!- the ticket agent produced a map.  Gracias!

 

It took awhile to get over a case of nerves.  We were WAY above the ground and every time we passed one of the poles with the rotating metal parts and there was a small vibration I got white knuckles.  Everyone else I rode with acted as if they were on the Chicago subway system, swiping their phones.  I relaxed enough to get a lot of pictures.

This cemetery near one stop did not give me confidence.

One neighborhood truly stands out.

Take a deep breath.  God's got this.

Don't look down!

I got off at the end of my ride and looked for the main street I'd seen on the map.  There are very few street signs in La Paz and this was no exception- especially frustrating for me since I have no inner GPS.  I finally asked a pleasant-looking woman in the traditional poncho and high hat with a little boy in tow if this was Avenida Armentia.  No, she said, “A bajo”, and pointed downward to a street below us.  I started walking that way and when she realized I was clueless she followed me, said something that included “minibus” and waited with me at a stop till one arrived and told the driver where to take me.  We drove through miles of twisty, narrow streets and I got panicky- how could the museum be so far away?  Then I almost laughed out loud.  I’d misread the signs in the station where I got off and had exited a few stops too early.  Sure enough, he dropped me at Avenida Armentia.  More wandering but that wasn’t necessarily bad news- I like wandering on a pleasant day and I was the only one around who looked like an American tourist.  

Walkway down to a lower street.

The bad news:  ALL the museums were closed by order of the President.  Corona Virus, of course.  (At that point there are 2 cases in Bolivia, both people returning from travel in Europe.)  I wandered some more and bought a delicious saltina (a type of empanada) from a street vendor and lost my way to the Armentia station but followed the path of the gondolas overhead and found the next station.  It was right behind the Bolivian National Brewery.

The trip back to the hotel was calmer and happier.  I used “Gracias” a lot that day and desperation caused my limited Spanish vocabulary to return.

We met with our guide at 2:30 and took a short walk around La Paz, a great opportunity to discuss history and culture and get to know our guide, Williams (yes, that was his first name), a genial man of indigenous (Ayumi) ancestry.  Typical of the other guides I’d had on my OAT trip to India and Nepal two years ago, he was an “ask me anything” person, willing to discuss the good and the bad in his country’s history and its current state.

We had a wonderful dinner at the restaurant which one of the women missed because she’d gone to see wrestling.  Wrestling?  It was Chillito wrestling- barrel-shaped women who wore the traditional skirts with petticoats and derby hats, with their dark, glossy hair in braids, doing the kind of slapstick wrestling that made Hulk Hogan famous, complete with a referee and a roaring crowd.   She said it was hilarious.