Uyuni and La Paz - what a difference

After visiting the Salar de Uyuni I took the night bus to La Paz. These touristic buses are very comfortable with reclining seats and lots of space. Nevertheless I didn't sleep well because the roads are bumpy and it was incredibly hot in the bus. The heating was on and the water in the bottle beside my seat was almost cooked in the morning. 

The Salar is a mindboggling place. Thousands of square km of blinding white salt. The sky wasn't as clear as it normally is. Smog from the wildfires in the Amazon forest made it a bit hazy. Also in Bolivia there are many wildfires in the jungle region bordering Brazil - it's on the news every day. They hope to control it with the help of France and other countries.

After the solitude en openness of the Salar, La Paz is quite another cup of tea. It is huge, houses covering the steep slopes up the hills around the centre. I took the teleferico to have a good look from above. However, it seems a rather relaxed place and I like it much more than I had expected. People are usually very friendly - as they are everywhere in Bolivia. At the witches market where they sell all sorts of charms (including mummified llama foetuses!) and musical instruments I had a chat with two men in a store who where playing traditional Bolivian music on their self-made instruments. One of them had spent some time in Germany and spoke a little German. Sometimes I think the world has become one big village ;-)

I am staying in a nice hotel in the centre of La Paz with a rooftop terracewith a good of the city. Today I am going to visit the Tiwanaku archeological site and tomorrow or Saturday I will go to Rurrenabaque in the jungle (far away from the fires :-). Next week I hope to make my way to Lake Titicaca and further into Peru.