La Paz, Bolivia: first day

One word to describe La Paz: chaotic. It's very dense, with endless crowds of people and insane traffic. Crossing the street is always an ordeal, as the drivers think honking automatically clears their path. They use the horn at every opportunity, no less than once a minute.

The air is heavy, partly because of the exhaust fumes, and partly because the city is about 3800m above sea level. We've been walking around like zombies, tired and with slow reactions to this fast-paced city. It seems more useful and safe to actually take a taxi anywhere you go, because it's cheaper, and the drivers seem to know what they're doing and how to navigate thru this madness.

The main means of public transport here is microbusses. They definitely contribute evey more noise and nasty fumes into the already polluted air of the city. On top of the honking you will inevitably hear the incessant yelling from the operators of the microbusses. Every microbus has a "yeller", whose job it is to find customers for the bus by yelling out the destination and the price louder than the competitors.