Day 77 - Teleferico

La Paz 

La Paz has a new teleferico (cable car) with three lines so far, and many more lines under construction. The idea of this cable car though is not for tourism, but as a means of public transport, as La Paz is built all the way up the sides of the mountains surrounding the central city area. A ride on the teleferico is cheap and each car holds 10 people. We caught the red line from the old railway station to the end of the line at the top in El Alto, where the Sunday market was being held.

We wandered around the market and somehow found ourselves in a huge car parts section, all sorts of bits and pieces were there, including a stall selling only sun visors. Further on we saw all sorts of other products - lots of stalls with pirated movies and software, food, clothing, kids rides on miniature (young?) llamas, someone trying to sell something related to prostates (!), thousands of finger puppets and much much more.....

Anyone want to buy a finger puppet?

Back in the city centre, there are lots of souvenir shops and people selling all sorts of things on the street but there isn't any pushiness or hard sell, everyone seems relaxed and easy, apart from the driving! We noticed in Chile that pedestrians were treated courteously, you only had to think about crossing the road and the cars would stop for you. Not so here in Bolivia though, in fact quite the opposite, the cars will not slow down or stop, they honk their horn at you if you consider stepping out and if you find yourself stuck in the middle of multi lane traffic with cars whizzing past a couple of inches of you from you on either side not one car will slow down and let you cross the road.

Taxis are so plentiful that they are the majority of cars on the road, however they all (even the newer ones) do the same thing with the seat belts. They tuck the click into piece through and out the back of the seat so there isn't any way you can use them - don't want them worn out I suppose.