Day 3 cont.

 The Orange line 

When low, heading high, literally, has always helped me feel better. So logic dictated I rode the cable car, as high as possible. I've already been on the red but as the cars passing over my room are orange time to go orange.

This is the newest of the five lines and travels above two valleys now full of housing (where once was countryside I understand) up to the heroes monument standing proud on the opposite summit to el alto.

Having swayed up and discovered it was windier than I realised from below, I had a quick ice cream and hopped back on before the weather worsened. Luckily the views were so absorbing I was back on Terra Firma before I knew it and feeling much more positive.

Bolstered with new confidence I set off back uphill, this time on foot, to find the cemetery, which I'd seen from above.  By dint of simply staying under the red cable car line, I found it. Yay..

The cemetery

Nothing sums up the synchronization between ancient and modern in Bolivia more than the cemetery. This deeply Catholic county also still practices old Andean rites such as skull worship (think day of the dead) and Andean symbols rest alongside Christian icons everywhere.

Mythical and religious icons together on cathedral

In order to combat overcrowding in this 3 km square site, crypts can only be rented for ten years, after which the body must be cremated. The ashes can be stored in small glass fronted boxes, stacked high. Each was a lovingly kept shrine to the deceased, miniature objects such as coke bottles and dolls conjuring up a sense of the individual.

Cemetery...

....with cable car view

It's a surprisingly upbeat place, food and flower stalls in the avenues, people sitting picnicing in the sun. Cheerful rather than morbid.

Coming back to the hostal was a bit trickier.  I found myself lost in an enormous covered market. No sign of daylight, no bearings.  I just kept heading down, and down, until, yay, I popped out in San Francisco square. Phew. Omg there are so, so many markets in la Paz.

The wires here are so old they have plants growing on them

Btw; that 'brain' in the local fruit tea..it's an apricot stone. So far so good, poisoning wise from food and drink brought in the market.

As I type the street below is quieter, the hillside opposite is lit with hundreds of tiny lights. The cable cars have stopped for the night. Time to sleep as everyone and everything starts up with a vengeance at daybreak here.