28th January 2013

Its been a few days since I arrived back in La Paz and even though I don't have anything out of the ordinary to report I've really enjoyed taking a little time to focus on work (research reading, correspondence and interview prep), picking up again with my Spanish lessons and beginning a fitness regime aimed at getting into good enough shape to tackle Mt Illmani (meaning Golden Eagle in Aymara) towards the end of February. Its the second highest mountain in Bolivia clocking up 6,438m in altitude and I expect its going to be just about the biggest physical challenge I've ever subjected myself to.

My fitness regime has been helped by the plentiful sunshine we've enjoyed here the last couple of days (I don't think I had two consecutive days of sunny weather here in La Paz in the entire month I stayed here previously) and the continuing presence of those ever so helpful extra red blood cells I built up in my previous stay which don't seem to have been depleted by my trip to the Buenos Aires. Perhaps my huge intake of red meat helped with the iron?

The clement weather hasn't just helped with the fitness, as it seems to have slowed the already rather relaxed pace of life here down another couple of notches making the experience of walking through the streets of La Paz and their ever present array of stalls and street hockers more pleasant than ever. Street life really is where its at in La Paz. There are very few actual shops you can enter with almost every ware sold in stalls lining the streets be it sim cards, fruit, raincoats, blankets, padlocks, fish and a whole lot more. People eat in the street too and since I've returned I've got more and more involved in the delights of food “en la calle” (in the street). I've developed a particular passion well its probably more like an addiction for a local snack called tucumanas. I was first introduced to this rather delicious jack of all trades morsel by my Spanish teacher Carlos who took me along to his favourite stall one afternoon right before I left. Tucumanas are basically a pastry based snack think empenada and if you don't know what that is pasty, at least as far as the shape goes. Unlike either of these the pastry is a thin slightly crispy fried affair that is really very light; the filling is a little more exciting containing: potato, onion, chicken, minced beef and hard boiled eggs. But the real fun starts with the array of sauces on offer to accompany them. Convention is to eat your tucumana at the stall you buy it from where you have a handily positioned table with at least six different sauces I can remember, these are: a green picante (spicy) one, a slightly less spicy tomato based one, a peanuty one, another tomato one without spice, a more herby green one, and another brown one that is kind of salty. You can switch sauce with every bite and two of these beauties costs around £1! I must also give an honourable mention to the soups here too, top two: sopa de mare and sopa de quinoa.

Aside form gorging myself on the delicacies of the street I've also spent some time with my friend Ruben who's 100% Bolivian and 100% cool. He took me out with a couple of his friends, Raul and Luis to a proper Bolivian boozer on Saturday night. Aside from the merriment and opportunity to practice my Spanish I leant about Bolivian customs and superstitions. They've got a tonne of them! I won't list off the entire gamut but I'll give you a quick flavour... First off its very bad luck to have any odd numbers of bottles on the table which meant Ruben was attentively checking the count at all times and moving offending odd numbered bottles from the table to the floor. The fun doesn't stop there as every fifth drink must be shared with Pachamama (translates loosely as mother earth and she's the no. 1 god around these parts, although all three of my hosts insisted they were catholic, who I thought were rather keen on having only one god?) this means pouring a little beer on the floor where I assume she can enjoy at her own leisure. This is the least of Pachamama's demands though, as I already discovered in an earlier trip to the witches market llama foetuses are readily available for farmers to bury under their crop in yet another offering, but more shocking still is the necessary offering if you're in the business of building a large home or office of a “lazy” person buried underneath said building. I took this in jest at first but my hosts insistence and independent verification from my Spanish teacher have confirmed this really happens. They even assured me that La Paz was a great place for it as there are a host of “lazy” people to choose from!

Tomorrow I conduct my first interview relating to the mining co-ops here in Bolivia which should be interesting and then Wednesday night its off to Cuzco in Peru for some fun with a couple of friends out there. Much as I love Buenos Aires La Paz really does seem to be my home away from home here in South America. I'm off to compare a ping-pong and pool tournament...