27th Oct - Going to La Paz

Getting onto the bus seemed to be one of the most difficult things, they sold more ticket than they had seats on the small bus and a couple of guys ended up sitting up beside the driver on make shift seats. Thankfully only his wife and their daughter was sharing the drivers cabin so no overcrowding then! Mairi and I sat outside waiting to get on the bus musing over the state of the tread on the tyres or rather complete lack of tread on the tyres. Luckily the front tyre was fairing a bit better and although would have failed every test in Scotland did have more tread than all the others put together. So when there was a loud bang, a swerve and a few screams as we careered round a corner we were sure one of the bare tyres was finally dead. Not so - the dead tyre was actually the front one with the tread. The tyre they replaced it with was so badly worn it actually had a gash in it.
The driver was quite heroic in changing the tyre and obviously used to such circumstances. He was really great at choosing rocks to hold the bus up while he changed the tyre - the jack not being up to much.
The rest of our journey was quite quiet, only the occasional mutterings of pray could be heard.
There was almost a cheer on arrival in La Paz and everybody was very thankful to be getting off the bus.
La Paz is a really wierd city right in the middle of a valley. You arrive high up in the valley and make your way down into the city. The streets of the city climbing the valley on all sides from a central street. Thankfully our hotel was on that central street and we didn't have to hike up the mad inclines which take everybodies breath away.
Somwhow I had managed to book us into a really posh hotel and we bedded down for the night all cosy and warm fighting off nightmares of buses.