La Paz is a crazy but wicked city, built hanging onto the side of huge mountains and down into the valley below. We were here for a few days before cycling the WMDR and then came back for more. It is un-Bolivian in it´s pace, very fast and we felt like we were back in London at times.
There are crazy old school Latin American buses in bright stripes everywhere, and little combi vans with people shouting out the doors for customers, winding their way around the steep cobbled streets.
The mix of old and new in the city is amazing, be it buildings, vehicles or just the people and how they dress and live. There are ladies in bowler hats everywhere. The story goes a guy had a load shipped here years ago for the railway workers but they were all too small. So the local women took to wearing them perched on top of their heads and it stuck. The Cholitas, as they are called, still carry their babies or goods in bright colourful rugs on their backs and wear huge patterned full skirts. It is so cold too so they need their big shawls, in my mind they have the right idea!! I love their long plaits too. 
The streets throng with traditionally clad locals going about their business, there are kiosks everywhere selling everything you can imagine. They are mad for markets and just street stalls in general. Alot of the stalls have telephones attached to them too. We even saw one with internet access
The above is the Witches market. They sell Llama foetuses that you bury under your new home for good luck and the infamous hallucenigenic San Pedro cactus. Check it out:-http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_pedro_cactus
The shoe shine boys wear balaclavas, there are men dressed as zebras directing traffic, and men dressed as donkeys playing in traffic showing you what not to do.
Ed went for an old school shave. Check out the cheesy pics on the walls around him. He took a lot of persuading to not give him a nice short back and sides, but did get away with a cheeky side parting. Look at the fear in his face
The 1st time we were in La Paz we went to see a locals favourite, Cholita Wrestling. It starts out as fairly badly acted WWF, like mid 80´s saturday afternoon UK wrestling with Kendo Ngasaki and Big Daddy. It´s staged in a little wrestling ring up in a sports hall in El Alto, the craziest and highest bit of the city. It started to get weird once a midget ( dressed as Chuckie from Childs Play) was introduced to the situation and was being thrown about the ring at people. Weirder still was the climax, Cholita Wrestling. The local women wrestle in their traditional clothes, just minus the bowler hats for obvious reasons. It actually got a bit too full on and although we know it is all for show, there was blood dripping down their faces and some really viscious attacking going on. Especially weird, in view of the fact the Bolivians take their kids..
Check out http://www.cholitaswrestling.com/index1.htm to see what it is all about, it´s hilarious!
Having witnessed some of the worlds strangest entertainment, we had a more sedate night winning the pub quiz (first time we have even won a quiz!) at the Adventure Brew Hostel with our team, ´Our Pizza´s Bigger Than Yours´.
It was 710 cm in diameter
Just on the way here to the internet cafe they were indulging in their national pastime of demonstrating in the streets, and setting off explosives as riot police watched on unimpressed. Demonstration is such a part of daily life that they permanently have riot police loitering on standby. Love the way Ed is so casual about it!
We had a very funny final night in a Karaoke bar with Rob and Ruth and Dr Viktor the singing Gynachologist. Check out the local butchering the song in the background on the video at the bottom.
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