Puno to La Paz

Out of the hotel at 7am for the 2 hour drive along the shores of Lake Titicaca to the Bolivian border. Apparently they shut down the strikes in La Paz for the weekend ("even strikers need a break") so we are continuing the adventure.
Checkpoint Charlie between Peru and Bolivia was organised chaos which was a pleasant surprise. Lots of people milling around but we got through the respective immigration points without incident. Onto our Bolivian bus for a drive to more ruins at Tiwanaku. Long tour through a museum which featured a piece of pottery clearly modelled on Dave on our tour. Mal mentioned this to Elvis our Peruvian guide and he cracked up. Dave's comment on this was "I manufacture them in the thousands".  Then a loooong tour through outside ruins which was vaguely interesting but people were more interested in when lunch was, I suspect.
Tiwanaku

When the guide said "now it is time for lunch" Mal found himself hoping "lunch" was not Spanish for"more ruins". (Happily it wasn't). Lunch cost us 40 Bolivianos each for vege soup and omelette and veges and canned fruit juice syrup garnished with a quarter of a tinned peach. This came to $A6each,so prices are even more ridiculously low in Bolivia than Peru.

Arrrived in La Paz at 4pm, and drove down a pretty impressive road view-wise, with towering snow-capped mountains all around - 6,000 metres high (the snow line is at 5,000 metres in the tropics we were informed) and the city sprawling over the whole valley far below.

Got caught in a traffic jam near the hotel thanks to streets being blocked by police because of protests. Lots of honking, and this continues as this is being typed.
We checked in finally then ventured forth onto the less than friendly streets of downtown La Paz. We have agreed to reserve judgement on this place until our city tour tomorrow, but this was tested as we walked down from the hotel. We were desperately looking for a coffee shop and finally found one in the local church! We had steered clear of streets blocked off with riot police with perspex shields everywhere, but they all seemed pretty relaxed and smiling so we figured there wasn't too much protesting happening there.
The church coffee shop was clean and provided sanctuary from the noise and milling confusion on the tiny streets, with honking cars and street hawkers outside. Debated whether to just stay there, but then plucked up courage to walk up to a pedestrian bridge and over the freeway into the upper part of the city. This had a better feel, but featured streetside market booth things all over the footpaths forcing you to cheat death amongst the cars, but at least there were some pedestrian malls as well. This area has a better feel and made us a little happier to be here.

Back to the hotel over the footbridge for a rest before meeting the group again at 7pm for tea. City tour planned for tomorrow.  The night lights are quite impressive - took a snap of them from our hotel: