I promised I would post pictures from La Paz this week, so here they are.  The first two shots were taken from the altiplano - from inside our taxi - as we started across the plain toward the city.  Can you see all those tall buildings?  They are 8 and 10 stories high, if that helps give you some idea of how far down in a hole La Paz sits.

This is the plaza in front of our hotel:  Plaza Isabel La Católica.

And this is our hotel (The Ritz Apart Hotel), taken from the plaza.  We were on the 8th floor (so count up 9, because the ground floor is Planta Baja in South America, and what we could call the 2nd floor is called the 1st floor here.)  This hotel is wonderful! They cater to North Americans and their desk staff speak excellent English.  Every unit is a suite with a kitchenette (including a refrigerator full of goodies at twice-the-price), a huge bedroom, a bar for eating/drinking, and a nice living room.  They also offer a wonderful free breakfast buffet from 7-10 am, including a "cooked to order" omelet if you want it.  It's in an excellent area; they will store your baggage for you if you need to leave it there after check-out time (which we did); and their customer service is top-notch.  For all that, it was about $95 American - a very fair price. 

My computer is acting up - it just started refusing to post pictures.  More later, when I figure out how to fix it!! 

Tuesday, June 11 - our wonderful son Jon told me what to do to fix things, so here are the rest of the pictures.

First a view of the plaza from our 8th floor window.  This whole little area really is lovely.

A view of the other buildings in the circle.

This was TRULY gorgeous.  Because La Paz is down in a hole, it is surrounded at night by the sparkling lights of all the buildings that cover the hillsides leading up to the altiplano.

 The plaza at night - also a beautiful sight.

The view at sunrise - LOVELY!

While our husbands were riding the Death Road (Camino del Muerte), Tammy Cardon, Linda Johnson and I went shopping and sightseeing (a little bit).  This is the view of the Cathedral of San Francisco as we left the Witches' Market (pictures of that, below) and headed downhill again.  This cathedral was built in the 1600's.

A little closer view so you can see the OLD stones of which it was built.

The front of the cathedral.  There is a huge square in front, where many people gather just to sit in the sun (and think, I suppose, or maybe not think.)

Me in front of the cathedral, just to prove I was there.

One of the inside courtyards of the cathedral.

Now some pictures of the Witches' Market.  You can buy anything here to cast spells, ward off evil, conjure up spirits, etc.  The street is several blocks long, but the witches' stalls are all within one block.  This is taken at the front of two of the stalls (the display in the center is in front of the wall dividing the two stalls.)

Apparently dead/mummified baby animals are very powerful medicine.  If you hang one of these in front of your home (or on your door, or someplace like that), it will keep evil spirits out.

I'm not sure if "the larger the baby animal, the more powerful the protection" or not - but there are a lot of baby alpacas this size for sale.

We have a Witches' Market in Cochabamba too - down in La Cancha - so I thought I'd add a few pictures from there.  You can see it's pretty much the same.  When we were there, we passed people telling fortunes with tarot cards, also with coca leaves and some other kinds of vegetation we didn't recognize.  The market in La Cancha is all inside one huge building - notice the high ceilings - so it's much bigger.  There's a very strong smell of incense because they burn it in a lot of the individual stores.

Dead baby alpacas in the Cochabamba Witches' Market. 

There are a lot of things in La Paz that we didn't have time to see and they are worth going back for - the Museum of Music, for instance.  The Governor's Palace is also open some hours/days and I would like to see that.  I would also like to show Farron some of the art work we saw in stores near the Witches' Market - it is beautiful.  We are definitely planning to go back to La Paz in August, when the temple is closed for two weeks for cleaning and maintenance.

That's all for this week.  Vayan con Dios . . .