A letter from La Paz

GOD KNOWS why she thought Bolivia, of all places, was the place to start. I mean, where even is it?!

Let me start with what La Paz doesn’t have: Starbucks, decent sidewalks, Whole Foods or even McDonald’s for that matter. Seriously. OK, Janine, stop being a drama queen! You knew this trip would be tough. Fine, so what does La Paz have? Pollution, traffic, Burger King (I know, right?) lots of people who look cold when it’s warm and hills.

Let’s rewind, OK. Those of you who know me (hi mom!), know I told Amanda there was no way I was letting her go to South America on her own, not in her condition. I mean, she’s barely had time to get angry about that, admittedly cute, monster of a man that left her almost literally at the alter. I know she said she didn’t want me to come (a lot!) but I know really she meant “please keep me company, I am having the biggest breakdown!”. So I headed to Target and bought all the things I would need to survive the trip (two suitcases versus Amanda’s tiny hipster backpack—we all know who is going to be asked for some Gold Coast Balsamic Conditioner!).

I am writing this blog, therefore, to keep y’all up to date and let you know how Amanda is doing. And for those who don’t know me (yet?!), I am writing this blog because I just feel I should, you know, put something back by letting you know where to go and where not to go. I just think it’s important we share our experiences, and get likes for them.

Back to La Paz, that’s basically the capital city. I didn’t want to get too involved in the planning, yet, not when things with Amanda are, well, so raw.

Amanda wanted to walk around the city. There were old churches and whatnot and loads of people just sitting around doing nothing. I mean, apply for a job maybe? They don’t seem to be able to build a subway so instead they have built a cable car to get around because the traffic is so bad, I guess. It’s like going skiing except when you look down instead of snow and cute boys you see lots of thin dogs and small houses that are way too close to other houses—who would want to have to see their neighbours all day long?!

We went up a mountain, I guess, to this other town called El Alto, which is Spanish for High Up. Some architect must have been having fun trying to fit as many of these houses as close to the edge of this cliff as possible. I guess they must be exclusive apartments what with the view of the city they had. There was this market which is like a mall but outdoors and only selling plastic cups and clothes from a big box and whatnot. It was too hot and crowded, no Wi-Fi and no food court as far as I could tell. Not my idea of a fun day out but it was certainly popular, especially with these old women wearing small bowler hats. I guess that’s really in right now.

On the last day Amanda wanted to take a cab, well I say a cab, it was like a van with as many people in it as you can fit. It cost like a dollar or something to go miles. We passed this family who must have been on vacation—I have no idea why, but they thought it would be fun to camp by the edge of a river, in the city, surrounded by trash and noise and people cooking GOD KNOWS what food on the street. Weird.

We travelled to some town where there was, apparently, some city in the old days probably even before America started. I mean, I saw some rocks and stuff and there were these statues but even they didn’t look all that much like a human. No one there spoke English and I couldn’t work out how to say USB-C in Spanish, so you can guess who’s cell phone died on the way back! Although this was good as I got to talk at Amanda, even though she said she was happy to look out of the window (she’s not much of a talker!). I asked her how she was feeling after Greg humiliated her like that, and told her that everyone was talking about her back home. She said it was better to find out he wasn’t the one before they got married than five years after. I know she’s bottling it all up though, classic denial. I know she needs to talk, to me.

I’m not saying that La Paz is a massive dump of a city with nothing to do, but I am glad that we’re moving on. I am a bit worried that Amanda thinks it’s a good idea to find a remote town to stay in, but as I said, she needs me right now so I am going to let her chose what we do. For now.