Chrissy - La Paz, Bolivia

La Paz is like a Monet. From far away it is beautiful. It sits nestled in a valley, its outer suburbs scaling up the surrounding mountains as far as the eye can see. Close up though, it's all over the shop. A mess. Probably the most dirty city we have been in.

It has some fascinating areas though - the 'Witches Market' where you can find llama foetuses, dried frogs to bring good fortune and owls to make you knowledgeable (look closely in the photo for the foetuses); the 'Black Market' where you can find anything from toilet seats to electronics (question the legitimacy of anything you buy here - apparently most of it is smuggled in from Chile). We didn't manage to find ipod headphones though. It was overwhelming the amount of stuff they had so we probably overlooked them. We did find Uhu glue sticks though so we can stick bits into our journals.

I didn't feel entirely comfortable wandering around La Paz with cameras and valuables tucked tightly into pockets. There are so many people in this city that a run in with pick pockets was almost inevitable....and then heading up through the Witches Market Mel's camera vanished from her pocket. I wish that they'd have the courtesy to leave your memory card... surely they could slip it back into your pocket as easily as they took your camera out. That will be the day though, courteous thieves. The difficulty is as well that anyone in these cities, from grandparents to children, are expert thieves. They have nasty little tricks, including spitting on you, to distract you while they empty your pockets. Really nice.

Christmas eve was massive at the Irish hostel where we stayed। Dressed in Santa hats and tinsel that we had picked up at the local markets (and Mel in a Santa jacket meant for a pet dog) we danced the night away in the hostel bar. They loved their Irish music (which we should have expected) - half the songs we had never heard before.

We had a massive Crissy lunch/dinner on Christmas day - turkey, ham and all the trimmings (minus cranberry sauce) and a random mushroom soup (?!?!) with some Irish boys that we'd met the night before. The one thing that was missing was warm Christmas pudding - sniff. I could have done with a massive slice, dripping in brandy butter, caramel sauce and ice cream, mmmmm.

The meal was so ginourmous that we packed up our leftovers and spent the evening scanning the streets for the homeless। We didn't have to go far. We walked a couple of blocks to the plaza where the president resides where we were absolutely swarmed by young children. If you are ever carrying food they will come up to you and ask for it. Not something that I would encouraged normally. It was so heartbreaking and scary because they seemed to come from nowhere! There were so many little hands grabbing at you and begging for the food, trying to take it out of your hands. I would have had at least 10 children surrounding me at once, and they chase you down the street if they know that you still have food. Not knowing the word for 'share' in Spanish, I picked out the littlest ones that were being trampled over and distributed my bags of leftovers.

I hope everyone had a very Merry Christmas and a happy new year

xxxx