"Coca Si, Cocaine No!"

So I am in La Paz, Bolivia and I whole-heartedly agree with the Bolivian President when he said, "Coca Si, Cocaine No!" Coca is an absolutley amazing wonder plant that helps with altitude sickness and revitalizes the body and soul, but after watching the epic benders that have been going on here in the hostel, I would have to say no to cocaine. I was at the Coca Museum today and there is an indigenous poem about the healing properties of coca and how it is medicine and magic in the hands of the natives, but drives the white devils mad. Pretty true in my experience. La Paz, and my hostel, is swimming in Cocaine. Its so cheap here, less than 10 dollars a gram that people do it pretty constantly and some of my mates stayed up for two days in a row on a bender. There is even a bar called Route 36, which is a secret after hours coke den that is only for Gringos, that serves grams right to your table. I went with a few friends two nights ago after dancing, just to check out the scene. It is an old renovated hours with blankets over the windows, lots of couches, but an over chill scene with good beats. The funny thing is that the waiters expect that if you go there you are going to buy coke. But supposively the coke is shit there and laced with speed so we obviously did not want to buy, and you should have seen the look on the waiters face when we told him we did not want any coke. At first I think he thought we were just having trouble deciding how much we wanted, but after a bit it finally dawned on him that we were not going to buy any coke and he gave us one of the dirtiest looks i have ever seen.
Never in my life have I been chastized for NOT buying drugs, what a trip. Oh and the other wierd part about Route 36 was that they were actually playing good beats, everyone was all coked up, and NO ONE was dancing. They were just all cracked out starring at each other.... a bit wierd if you ask me. Eventually Pete, our new Australian friend, and I started a dance party and some other people joined in a bit. But there we were, the three people not on coke, dancing around in a coke den while all these tweekers just sat and snorted lines.... totally La Paz.
Ok so that is not La Paz, but it is a tourist side of La Paz, I have also spen t the last few days trekking around the city, going down every random street i can find just getting a feel for it, and it is GORGEOUS here. La Paz is situated in a high altitute calley amongst the snow capped Andes. You walk around the city and see all the houses carved into the hill-sides and the snowcapped peaks starring back at you. It is unique and breath-taking, literally i have trouble breathing when I walk up the steep streets cause of the altitude, but I have been drinking plenty of coca tea and water and I am aclimating pretty well. We also went to see a local wrestling show where women and men wrestled each other. It was pretty bizarre, and I guess is Bolivia's take on female empowerment, but really it just turned out to be a cheesier, phonier version of professional wrestling from the States. The first act was kind of amusing, but the second act was literally two men pretending to beat up a woman, and every once in awhile she would fight back, but it sent shivers up my spine to watch allthese yound bolivian children watching the wrestling of two men mand-handling a local women. Even though it was all for "show", they pulled her braids and threw her around the way I have seen men do to their wives in India and it was way too realistic for me. I left after the second act with a bad taste in my mouth. Luckily my two friends left with me and we watched the sunset over the city from a tall hill, and then went out for fabulous Indian food. My one friend that was with me at the wrestling has my ideal job. He goes around the world setting up health education programs in rural villages for children. He is from Denmark and works there for about three weeks to every two in the field. It sounds aboslutely amazing, and has really inspired me to find my ideal job. I met another man who works with human rights issues from London and travels one week for every three back in London. Both of these jobs sound absolutley ideal to me.

Ok so much has happened, especially in Colombia, but I might have to go to bed now. I am exhausted from traveling the city so much and we are headed to the Salt Flats tomorrow morning for a Jeep tour. I can't wait to get back into the desert!