Last Day in La Paz

     I got to sleep in until almost 8 today--exciting, until you realize that that´s 4 in the morning Oly time.  So while we are in Bolivia and it´s Bolivian time that matters (to us) I wouldn´t have minded getting up around 9.
     First thing we walked to the Athina travel agency, a couple of blocks away, and got tickets for Sucre for tomorrow morning.  Becaues I will not longer have reliable internet, posts will be infrequent but lengthy.
     It´s a fifty-minute plane trip to Sucre from La Paz, a big improvement over a fourteen-hour busride.  After getting our tickets we walked to a big suspension bridge, called the Punta de las Americas, and to a small textile museum showing weavings made by the local indigenous people. 
    Back to our apartment was a long ways uphill and downhill (one of the major disadvantages of walking in La Paz is that you have to go steeply down- AND steeply uphill to reach almost any destination), and we were ready for a late lunch when we arrived.  We finished watching one of the movies we bought--the Bourne Legacy, not nearly as good as the original trilogy--with lunch, and my parents napped while I practiced.
    This evening we hiked to yet another new part of the city, and happened across a huge market and the blackmarket strip.  There we bought a second pair of binoculars for birds, and were amazed at the quality of the merchandise.
     On our way home, we passed the city jail.  The jail is located in the middle of a block, and beneath it small stands sell liquor.   People line the streets selling things, and there are many people who will shine shoes.  The shoe-shiners often where face masks, because though they need money for their families it is a job that is often looked down upon by Bolivians and they wish to remain unrecognized.
     The walk we took this evening was one of the best.  It is almost impossible to descripe walking up a cobblestone street packed with people selling hundreds of onions, hundres of ears of corn, thousands of potatoes, fruit, rope made out of skin, shoes, clothes, jam, bread, eggs, and almost anything else.  
     Happy birthday Leah and, in case I can´t get online in the next couple of days, happy birthday McKenzie and happy Hanukkah.