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

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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.

Picturesque morning

Plaza Mayor in downtown La Paz is one of the places with the biggest number of changes. The Bolivian capital seems to always have projects there, from child to teen I remember the crowds and the books sellers, people always walking, waiting, and sometimes running. Now  it’s free of sellers and it’s bigger and quieter; with modern structures that harmonize very well with the old buildings. Actually I prefer it as a place to rest than Plaza Murillo that is the main civic plaza at the city.

The old river Chuquiyapu (called by Spaniards Choqueyapu) runs under the plaza. It seems that Spaniards in those centuries used the sources of water as sewers so they hide the rivers that in our way before colony instead had to be completely clean and the sewers cannot blend with the rivers in the cities, nor in other places. Actually water was considered a gift from our Apus (mountains)

So Plaza Mayor is a place open to the sky and with a secret river under your feet.