The (a)nswer is up there

The problem is to formulate the adequate question.

We are clay and our time is the rain

 

Moon Valley in La Paz, Bolivia… under a blue light of a dying day.

La Paz, let’s play a melody for the night

Let’s play a melody for the night

I went some hours to La Paz, into the heart of Bolivia. I decided to be in a cheap hotel to walk a bit the city because usually I just go for a pair of hours. It was the summer of 2014, exactly in January so the heat was a bit strong, although people in the streets as the performer in the photograph was quite covered so I guess he was a foreigner, Chilean perhaps.

The photographs include views from dusk to night and a bit from the morning. I hope you find some akin to your spirit.

Modernity

Towards the south is the more contemporary architecture of La Paz. There are several Bolivians of German ancestors that enriched the culture in that place with buildings of peculiar shapes. In a certain way they are like the old Bolivians (common ancestors with us Peruvians, in fact I’m half Bolivian) in the respect to the nature and the harmony of buildings integrated to the natural environment.

big city and vast nature

Illimani’s time to rest

flame in the sky

concrete twilight

Old downtown

The old colonial downtown was under moonlight, giving the stones part of that sense of old time. I saw a lot of people waiting for public transport. I took some photographs with care to not seen because certainly I don’t look as a tourist.

I think the city looks better in comparison to my visits as a child.

Moonstone

colors at night

sad yellow lights

day of service

ha!

One for white cars and the other for colored cars

carnival of lights

A good bye in the morning

Next day I had to be in Tiwanaku, so I just walked a few hours in the early morning and said good bye to the city.

compression

Red car goes to the yellow house and yellow bus to the red house

Picturesque morning

And that was all. I saw a parade or protest, something usual when I was a kid but that surprised me this time. Me and my generation generally are apolitical due to the vast amount of people that used to search power with (bad) politics instead of real work. Actually there were so many protests years ago in La Paz that you can see that people is indifferent to them now. As a foreigner I didn’t approximate to them to investigate the reason of the parade or protest (haha, they could think I’m a Peruvian James Bond spying) so I took my backpack and went once more to the highway asphalt.

Invisible revolution

***

Notes:

In “Illimani’s time to rest” the big building is Alto Obrajes’s Olympic size swimming pool designed by Arch. Ricardo Pérez Alcalá.

In “Concrete twilight” the building is the Hotel Radisson Plaza La Paz designed by Argentinian atelier SEPRA.

The partial view of the bridge in “ha!” corresponds to Pasarela Pérez Velasco designed by Arch. Diego Marquez Burgos and Arch. José Marquez Pereira

In “Red car goes to the yellow house and yellow bus to the red house” the church is La Recoleta designed by Arch. Eulalio Morales.

La Paz, from midday to dusk (a)

the midday’s calm

When I travel to La Paz from my hometown in Perú I use normal transport. I don’t use touristic services because they are expensive and usually the people, Peruvian or Bolivian, that has to work serving to tourists develop the bad habit to ask high prices for bad services. I take a little car at 4:00 am from Juliaca and I am in Puno more ore less at six o’clock, I spend 3.50 soles or 1.25 dollars; in Puno I take another little car to the Peruvian city of Desagüadero for ten soles or 3.5 dollars approximately, in the frontier and near 8:00 am I am crossing to the Bolivian city of Desagüadero. There I take a taxi to La Paz where I will be at midday Bolivian hour (they are one hour earlier) for 15 Bolivians pesos or 6 dollars. I pay for all that transport more or less ten dollars so it is to me very cheap. The frontier closes at night, eight pm if I’m not wrong and so I were that day in La Paz barely some hours. So this is one visit I did from midday to dusk.

PART I: EL ALTO (The High)

If you think in music I would say that El Alto is jazz mixed with native music, it is improvised, vital, and dynamic. This is a good place to buy products if one knows what to find, it is, like my city, a city of merchants. So the robbers are not tolerated and the people is always building and selling.

techamiento

it’s coming!

Copacabana

In La Paz I can identify two cultures that influence the architecture: the native culture (quechua and aymara), and the German culture. The Tiahuanaco shapes blends with the German way to do buildings. The latter has a great presence in the south of the city and their influence go to El Alto. To me was amazing the first time I saw Bolivians with German blood and that explained a lot of the configuration of La Paz. And I love it, certainly the colonial Spanish component of the culture was separating the people quechua and aymara against the q’aras (Spanish people), but the German component of the culture (please, be aware I am talking about culture, not about races) hasn’t that motivation so one can see its impact in the city as a whole, it has an idea more unifying.

red labyrinth

PART II: DESCENDING TO THE HEART

The highway go deep into the city, as a Dante we descend to the heart. I am not Christian so when I mention the Divine Comedy to me is not a book of torments but the exploration of a fantastic world. La Paz has parts that make me evoke to Qosqo (Cusco), Arequipa or Puno. The tourism is making the same as other places: the food every time seems no better but the opposite, so one needs to search more. I am sure that in the places less touristic the story is different. But even thus the city is very affordable.

blue paint, red sky

The taxis take you here, in the General Cemetery, and from here you can take cars to other places outside La Paz with very good prices.

Or you can go to the Buses Terminal of La Paz. This building was designed by Gustave Eiffel. And it is really pretty: It has a triangular shape but with an arched portal that gave it a human proportion, it has the dignity of an old gentleman. It was before the train station so the use now require modifications, it is not very compatible with the new functions. Fortunately La Paz has great architects that could resolve this design task, I think this building deserves it.

a new day begins

Fulgor

motorbike

coke coming

La Paz Bus Terminal

With the centuries La Paz has accumulated a valuable heritage. With worthy contemporary architecture but sadly also with big mistakes as Lanza Market in front of the Basilica San Francisco. But in general the city is well treated and it looks more modern and comfortable. I remember when I was a child the protests against the governments were common and much of the energy went to those activities, today with the President Evo Morales those energies are leaded to constructive projects. I don’t know so much about politics or ideologies, in fact I dislike everything that has to be related to politics, so don’t take my commentary as an ideology though but a objective fact.

Contemplative

cloud, pepsi and bridge

gentil equilibrio

colors against uniformity

city of white cars

PART III: THE SOUTH – CALACOTO

I understand that in Calacoto there are Bolivians from German ancestry. It is the lowest place, it is clearly ordered and organized. It has a more western aspect, and it is a proof that the culture in La Paz is dynamic in every aspect. I am sure that the rich native culture is also a reason to the dynamism of Calacoto.

we want to be taller

a little Miami in La Paz

horizontal lines

Ballivian avenue

radiocubism

let me tell you about the blue

Torre Sur

the calm before the night

E (don’t)

a mystery behind

fat threes

Notes:

I wanted to cite the designer of every building but I couldn’t find all of them. But I have the following names:

•  Alto Obrajes’s Olympic size swimming pool by Arq. Ricardo Pérez Alcalá (“we want to be taller”)
• Hotel Camino Real Suites by Arq. Ramiro Muñoz Moyano (“Horizontal lines”)
• Apart Hotel Casa Grande by Arq. Ramiro Muñoz Moyano (“A sun into my body” and “The calm before the night”)
• Hotel Casa Grande suites La Paz II by Arq. Ramiro Muñoz Moyano (“E (don’t)”, “A mystery behind”, and “Fat trees”)