Stuck in La Paz and near muggings...

After recovering from the Choro trail my next mission was to find a way to reach the jungle. However, it was to prove more difficult than expected, Bolivia isn´t known for its wonderful infrastructure so the bus to the jungle is quoted as taking 18-35 hours and is supposed to be horrendeous. The other option is to fly. However, as rain season has hit a little early, this was also to prove difficult as the planes cannot land in the rain (think Aer Arann only South American style) so after 5 days of trying and repeated cancelations I decided to give it a miss in Bolivia and to try in Peru instead.

After being stuck there, La Paz quickly began to loose its charm, and I became eagar to leave a place for the first time in South America. I did however decide to stick around for the Loki Halloween party. There was a turnover in my room and instead of the ignorant french boys who didn´t talk to me, I got 9 hilarious english boys who decided to adopt me as a sister seeing as I was the only girl. Halloween however turned out to be scarier than anticipated, I woke at 6 am and spend the next day and night horribly sick. Tragically my costume went to waste, although I looked scarier enough without dressing up. I left the hostel once that day to buy a bus ticket for Copacabana, still determined to leave La Paz. This little excursion out was to prove equally scary as it was my first South American near mugging experience. Im usually more careful, but being ill left me a little careless and walking back through a crowded street I felt a tug at my bag and turned around to find a man with his hand in it. I freaked out and started screaming at him angrily and got very high pitched. He pretended he had dropped something, I checked my bag, nothing was missing and walked off quickly. At that point I was just annoyed, mostly at myself. If Im going to get robbed here I at least want a decently dramatic story out of it as opposed to, ´I got a little careless and I guy stole my purse..´

However, that wasn´t the end, about 5 meters down the road two Bolivian school girls that had witnessed the innocident came running after me, and told me I should cross the road. When I asked why they warned me that men were watching me and following me and they would try and mug me. Thats when I got scared, so I jumped in a taxi and got back to Loki where I spent the rest of my time in La Paz.

The next morning I felt better and got the early bus out of La Paz...