Denver has nothing on La Paz!

All of a sudden the mile high city isn´t that impressive. La Paz is at a 11,811 feet while Denver is only at 5,280 feet as marked on the steps of city hall. We saw a flyer for a golf course which said that "you´ll never hit the ball this far anywhere else" and I´m sure it´s true. Walking up stairs has never been so hard! The city of under a million people was much nicer than Lima. We guessed it had a lot to due with the smaller size of the city which made it seem more managable to us and more friendly. The fact that you could see the snowcapped peak of Mt. Illumani from downtown was really impressive to me.

It seemed as if the amount of poverty was about the same. There were women, men and children spending their days selling their wares on the street. Everything from the freshest of fruit to nails and screws. All of these people working on the streets lead to parts of the city being quite dirty (still better than Lima) as the kids used the sidewalk for their toilets. We´ve seen this before and continued to see it in several other cities. Begging was also a huge problem. I woudl guess that 1/3 of the people on the stree weren´t trying to sell you stuff, they just had their kids break your heart but begging you for money.

The city was truly and experience.