FRIDAY 21st La Paz
Lindsey had mentioned to our guide last night at dinner that we wanted to go geocaching to Muello de Diablo, the devils tooth and needed some advice on how best to get there.
She said that she hadn't been there for many years and would like to come too. Bonus.
The three of us walked out of the hotel and the next thing I know Marisol has waved down a van and we were off. The roads are full of these vans and up until now I hadn't realised that they are all private buses. 2.50 Bob to go pretty well anywhere. They have collective groups and so they do operate specific routes and work to a very loose timetable.
We got off at San Miguel which is about 10km south of the city centre.
The geocache is a Multi so we had to find a four digit number on a modern church in order to solve the final coordinates for the cache.
Once that was done Marisol hailed a taxi and a rapid Spanish conversation ensued. She turned to us and said 80 Bob? Lindsey said 60 and the driver said si.
Off up the hill we went. Quite steep and the road deteriorated as we went. From bitumen to rock, like paving stones, to dirt and quite a few hair pin bends. We eventually arrived at a small rural community and the driver dropped us off by the school. We had about 1km left to walk towards Muello de Diablo towering above us.
A very nice uphill walk with a bit of a scramble at the end and there was the cache. Last found in January. Marisol was intrigued, asked lots of questions and is now initiated into geocaching.
Log book and trinkets in hand.
Once the hide was replaced we walked on up to a view point and took some photos.
The devils tooth with La Paz in the distance.
The gateway to the community that lives in the shadow of Muello de Diablo.
As luck would have it a taxi appeared and dropped some passengers off. We grabbed it and for 20 Bob we were taken halfway down the hill to the bus (van) terminus. We hopped into a waiting van which took us all the way back to the city centre.
Nearing midday now so Marisol took us to a "fast food" restaurant that sold a local Bolivian specialty called Saltenas. Similar to Empanada but with more filling and juicier. She told us that McDonalds tried La Paz out for a year and then closed down. They were too expensive and the Andean fast food is cheaper and healthier. Burger King is still surviving with one restaurant but is never busy.
After our snack we said goodbye to Marisol and headed out to collect two more geocaches. The first one was 15 minutes away in a scruffy park on the side of a hill frequented by young couples whose only interest was to play tonsil hockey.
A quick find and sign and then we walked onto an aerial walkway which wormed its way up the hill to a saddle. Great views and from the saddle we could look down into another valley suburb of La Paz and we saw where their major football stadium was. In the background was another 6000m mountain in all its glory. Stunning.
We were trying to get to the next cache in an adjacent park but walking up this hill which was a minor navigational error as all the park entrances up this way were blocked off.
So back down we went to an entrance where there were several small astro turf football fields for people to play five or six a side. We watched a few moves as we walked past. They were pretty good. Eventually we got to GZ and set about looking for the cache. Lindsey spotted it in a rock wall and unfortunately it had slipped down into a crevice. 20 minutes later with the aid of several sticks Lindsey managed to extract the tube.
Mission accomplished so it was time to walk the two or so kilometres back to the hotel.
In the evening we were our guides guinea pigs. She took us to a restaurant that she hadn't tried before. It wasn't a winner. In fact it was a rip off. Service was slow and the meals were small and expensive.
In bed by ten for our last night in La Paz.
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