January 15-17
We had planned on being in La Paz for about two weeks. We had heard great things about the city from a number of people, but the real reason was because we, once again, were trying to get our Brazil visas. The best timing we had heard so far was from Bogota which promised 10 business days. We flew in on Sunday night and crashed. The past few weeks had definitely left their mark and we were ready to get some R&R in La Paz as we waited. Monday morning, we arrived at the Brazilian consulate 20 minutes before 8am to make sure we beat the crowds. Upon arrival, we found out that Google maps let us down and it actually didn’t open until 9am. So we waited a little extra. Still excited to beat the crowds! At ten minutes to 9 another woman joined us in waiting. So we beat out that one woman with our 80 minute wait.
We ended up spending about 3.5 hours at the consulate working through the process with a very nice man who, despite us not speaking Portuguese or Spanish (very well), seemed to enjoy us and was very kind. When we had submitted all the paper work, he pointed to the calendar and told us we could come back in two days to pick up our visas. Two Days!!!! We were blown away. So, plans changed. With this new found freedom and time, we were able to switch back to our original plan of going to Colombia and taking a boat down the Amazon to Brazil. So now we were down to just two and a half more days in the city. So we went out and crammed our days full of activity! Just kidding. We were still exhausted, so we failed La Paz. The city seemed really cool and we knew there were tons of activities that we were missing out on: death road, Lake Titicaca, the gondolas, and a highly recommended museum from Mike’s friend who is from Bolivia. We did none of them. But – we did sleep a lot and we ate really well. So basically, I’m going to tell you about what we ate in La Paz.
Street sausages: there was a sausage vendor two doors down from our hotel which provided two of our meals – I’m not sure what kind of sausage they were, but mine looked and tasted like a brat and Michael always went with the spicier version that was reddish in color. A little picante sauce and mustard completed the meal.
Vinapho: we had lunch at an excellent Vietnamese restaurant. Spring rolls and some curries. Super delicious.
Indian: we accidentally ate at the Indian restaurant next door to the Delhi Curry House which is the restaurant we were trying to find. It was still delicious.
Gustu: ok – so this is the real star of the show. Gustu is a restaurant owned by one of the owners of Noma which was the second best restaurant in the world for a period of time (in Denmark). The main theme of the restaurant is refined Bolivian cuisine. Also even though it was a bunch of Danish people who started the restaurant, they have been teaching Bolivians their methods and slowly handing over all roles in the restaurant. So when we went (two times in three days), all of the waiters were Bolivian, one of the two managers was Bolivian, and 90% of the kitchen was Bolivian, including the chef. The beauty of this place, too, was that it was cheap. They were throwing out super fancy NYC style cocktails that have things on fire and interesting ingredients for 5 bucks.
A few pictures to show off the delicious food:
That’s right – they started with deep fried ants. They didn’t taste like much, so it was more the shock value than anything,
This is llama tartar with frozen yogurt and maca which is an Andes herb. This dish was delicious! When we went back the second night, we ordered this one again.
This is alligator tail with watermelon and strawberries – also really interesting and delicious:
One non food activity: we did go to San Francisco downtown which was one of the things I wanted to visit while in town.
Whomp – it wasn’t that cool. Big and beautiful, but very similar to most of the other cathedrals we’ve seen in South America.
So… incredible food and fast visas. La Paz probably is one of the cooler cities we’ve been to – but we’ll have to visit again to know for sure. Sorry La Paz for not doing it right. Off to Bogotá!