After a leisurely start to the day, with a shower and other chores to occupy us, we took a taxi into the city around lunch time. The ride was hair raising - the route into the city from Mallasa winds up and down the walls of the canyon in which the city sits, but this did not deter our driver he pushed his little Toyota sedan to its limit the entire journey with brake and tires squealing on corners and downhill sections.

But we made it without any damage, to the tourist area of town - the San Francisco church area. As we discovered this area is simply swarming with tour operators, hostels, and souvenir stands, and food stands. The whole area feels like one big market as every streets for blocks around is lined with stalls.

We spent a pleasant few hours. Nina stocked up on more souvenirs, we organized to ride mountain bikes down the famous death road on Saturday, and we booked a hostel room for Friday night so as to be in time for the pickup for the bike ride on Saturday.

We returned to the Oberland hotel by taxi and it was a repeat of the mornings journey - tires and brakes squealing, and the vehicle being driven as fast as it would go.

La Paz is an interesting city - or maybe I should say it is completely different to any expectations we had.