Street food for thought

Sometimes you eat the street food, and sometimes, well, it eats you. I spent yesterday morning walking, climbing and taking pictures, then indulged in a little empanada tucamana from a lady near the bus station. It tasted good, but later on, it had its revenge. Combined with the unrelenting headache it brought my day to an early end.

I watch a movie, go through my pictures, try and keep myself distracted. By the time I'm ready for bed, things are worse. It's cold. My whole body is now aching. I manage to fall asleep. For twenty minutes. This pattern continues all night. At one point I think I managed a whole hour in one go.

I'm pretty bad when I get ill. I sulk, get depressed. At home, this is just about bearable. Alone, on the other side of the world, oh dear. Things aren't helped by the fact that I've just finished reading The Sheltering Sky by Paul Bowles, in which one of the main protagonists dies of typhoid whilst travelling around Morocco. I google typhoid. Stomach's on the mend. Don't think it's that. It's the altitude. And I won't be getting any lower for a good while yet. Which means I need to man up and deal with it.

I let the ibuprofen and acetazolamide work their magic and head out. Walking down the street, I am alarmed to discover that I am in crippling agony with my dodgy back. I stop for lunch. About thirty seconds after I leave, it starts raining. Oh wait, that's not rain. It starts hailing. Hard. I can't walk anyway, it hurts too much. But not as much as having to spend another afternoon inside my hotel when a city as cool as this one is outside the door.

La Paz shoeshine boys all wear ski masks. Don't ask me why

Mujeres de La Paz

Shade

Sagarnaca from the roof of Iglesia San Francisco

Looking up towards El Alto from San Francisco

They're at it again

Colectivo

Jugo de naranja, La Paz style

Terminal de buses, designed by Gustav Eiffel

Street food