LA PAZ THROUGH THE LENS

La Paz was adorned with Bolivia’s colors for the whole time I was there, possibly in conjunction with the upcoming election but also quite possibly a permanent fixture.  They are very nationalistic people.  Soon after I took this photo I pointed the camera in the direction of some oranges that were in front of a blue wall making for a nice shot.  The vendor who was selling the fruit yelled something at me and when I looked up there she was looking very unimpressed with me.  She thought I was taking a picture of her and all I really wanted to shoot was her fruit.  Don’t flatter yourself, senora.

Not only was she telling me not shoot pictures she even grabbed an orange and held it over her head ready to throw it at me.  “Actually, while your sales pitch and customer service are outstanding I think I will buy my oranges from the next vendor, but thanks anyway.”

A little slice of home.  I was surprised to see this Sugarloaf sticker in the window of the travel agency at my hotel.  It was the only sticker from the States in the window, which had stickers from all over the globe.  Sugarloafers think it’s annoying having all the people from Massachusetts on the slope, wait until they start coming in from Bolivia for the weekend.  You better hope they ski better than they drive.

I’ve smelled nicer markets than this one.

Lots of Jesus gear in La Paz. I can’t get over how the Lord is depicted in different ways. Here on this blanket his image looks like an excerpt from some 1974 high school year book. Class of 74′ever, man!

Row, row, row your bus…Instead of a bridge across this narrow strait of Lake Titicaca we vacated the bus and took a small passenger boat across while our bus was ferried across separately.  Initially, we thought that they would row the buses across the whole way and that that job would replace the woman selling fish at the market as Bolivia’s most undesirable job. But thankfully the barges had motors as well so the rowers just need to push them off shore a ways.  Sorry fish lady.

I couldn’t figure this one out.  Traffic zebras.  And I saw multiple traffic zebras so it is officially a ‘thing they do in La Paz’ and not an isolated incident.  My question is:  Drivers in La Paz don’t really obey the traffic laws, so why do they obey a person in a zebra suit?

Driving in La Paz, though I never did it, seems to be a bit of an adventure.  For instance, in traffic circles (rotaries, roundabouts, whatever you call them) cars pulling into the circle have right of way, not the cars already in the circle.  Have fun with that.