La Paz

The Bolivians have some interesting traditions - there is a period in January when they buy miniature models of something they desire to own eg car & they go to the church to pray for this to happen, When they do get the eg car they cover it with flowers & take it back to the church to be blessed by the priest. There are numerous stalls which have miniatures for you to buy - see below

 Another belief is that if you wish for rain you go to the 'Witches Market" where the Sharma will prepare a basket of lollies, coca leaves & a foetus of a llama you were then expected to burn it, - it all looked pretty yucky!
Today we went to Tiahuanaco - a spiritual meeting place of the Tiahuanaca people who were around 20,000BC. Very interesting but poorly developed & when you consider that money has been put into it but a lot was filtered off into other pockets (if you get my meaning) & the site really hasn't been excavated.
The surrounding countryside is quite beautiful with snow capped mountains as the back drop.

We have just met with the guy who is organising the next part of our trip through the salt flats. As there has been a lot of rain some parts of the journey have had to be changed. We are on a night train tomorrow which sounds interesting - thank goodness we have some gin left!!
It sounds as if we will be out of contact for quite a few days & we are getting up to 5098m - we will certainly be out of breath but hopefully I will have some good tales & photos to show you then.