Our luggage stays here in an area that seems safe, and we go downtown to look at the famous markets. They are all behind San Francisco Church and we are lucky that the taxi driver takes backroads to get there. It is already pretty hot and combined with the load of really old cars, the smell is almost unbearable. The Witches Market is unique and we see weird things like little lambs, dried up on a stick, lots of stones in different shapes that mean different things like prosperity, luck, money,... And of course there is the myriad of teas being sold for all kinds of sicknesses. Under every stall - which are crammed on the narrow and steep sidewalks - are bunches with different herbs. People seem to know what they need and the tourists go for the stones.
The other markets kind of merge into the witches' market and so we also look at fruits and very few veggies. The artesanal market is very nice, lots of colorful things and since I am not going to send that 250$ package to Germany now, I have to be careful what I shop... :)
We notice that basically everything people need is sold on the street. There are almost no supermarkets and you can literally get everything you imagine out there.
Our breathing gets worse and worse. The car smells combined with the height are not good for us and so we are lucky that we can go to the busterminal at 8 to catch our bus to Uyuni.
The guy from the hostel is wishing us good luck on the sleeping part. After Oruro it is apparently only a dirt road. We'll see.
The office of our bus company is still closed and so we wait inside the bus station. We pick the worst possible spot and have to listen through the high pitched voice of a girl shouting out "Potosi, Potosi" every 20 sec. That is a town. A guy without teeth who is putting a lot of coca leaves into his mouth shouts the same thing, but it is so muffled, that we can hardly understand. The second the girl takes a smoke break, the next one comes shouting "Oruroruro".
We are happy when we can leave this zoo and go to our bus which will serve us a warm meal, gives us heat and wifi.
The bus looks good and we are happy. Once onboard the row in front of us is empty and so we spread out. The warm meal is cold and the wifi is not working, but who cares? The Japanese guy does. He keeps asking and then falls asleep rapidly.
It takes almost 1h to get out of La Paz. The bus is aching up the steep hill towards the airport and the lights get less and less. Soon everything is dark.
We try to sleep and with the anticipation that the guy might be right and we will not sleep in the second part of the night, that is a good idea.
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