Bolivia Expedition Dispatch

June 12, 2010 – Sightseeing in La Paz

This is Leila Silveira reporting from La Paz. Today the last two members of our climbing team, Michael and Chris from Orlando, Florida arrived. They arrived looking fresh and relaxed, having had an easy flight connection. Chris who has just graduated, is ready to go to college at Cornell to play on their football team. He looks really happy to be here on his first climbing expedition and his first time being at high altitude. I will keep a close eye on him since he's coming here right from sea-level. His father, Michael, has been on a few trips with Berg Adventures and has experience with high altitude. This is another special father and son trip on our Bolivia program since Chris will be moving far away from home soon after the trip.

At 9am, Theodore, our cultural guide, joined us for our team meeting where we covered our program and our schedule for the next few days. Right afterwards we left for a walking tour of La Paz which is a great way to see the city and also to help us acclimatize.

We started the tour walking down Prado Avenue, the most important street in La Paz and Theo had some great stories to share with us. We passed some murals that were painted on the walls of the avenue which covers the history of La Paz from the colonization times through all of their battles and struggles; the mines, the gas, and all the main Bolivian issues.

We visited the Murillo Square which is where the president has his office, right next to the cathedral. This is the most important square in the city and is a square with a bloody history: 3 presidents have been killed here and many small civil wars have taken place, including in 2003 from which bullets still mark the buildings. The people requested not to fix the bullet holes so that they would serve as a reminder of a situation that should never be repeated.

We then passed a church famous for its weddings and as we were passing by, a bride and groom arrived in a van. An interesting thing is that at the door to the church there are many different wedding decorations and even wedding rings for sale, just in case the groom forgot to buy them…

We kept moving towards the Prado Avenue again where San Francisco church is situated, right next to the witches market. Theo, our guide, brought to our attention an interesting point about the architecture of the church; right next to a Catholic Saint there is a statue of Pachamama. Pachamama is a goddess revered by the indigenous as "Mother Earth" . Quite a peaceful mix of religion and culture.

We also visited the gallery of my favorite Bolivian painter, Guido Balderrama. All the members of the group also fell in love with his work and Mike and Terri ended up buying one of his paintings. Guido really knows how to capture the character of the locals and the mountains around La Paz.

After a quick lunch Theo continued the tour with a visit to the witches market. Michael, Chris and I went back to the hotel where I had some last minute planning to do before we leave tomorrow morning and they wanted to watch the Soccer World cup game, US against UK, scheduled for 2:30pm.

We had a welcome dinner planned for 7:30pm but first Osvaldo came by the hotel and checked some of the climbers' gear to make sure that they had brought everything they needed! We are ready and excited to go. Tomorrow we'll move a bit higher to Lake Titicaca and then later on to Condoriri to climb our first peak: Pequeno Alpamayo.