A difference (one of the few) to the former La Paz in 1981 is easy to notice.
It is the funicular system connecting the main districts of the city along a number of lines.
Gondola up to El Alto
Some background info: In the summer of 2012, Bolivian President Evo Morales announced the construction of three cable car lines linking, among other places, the city of El Alto with the lower-lying seat of government, La Paz, in order to relieve traffic jams, particularly acute at rush hour.
However, critics complained that, the cable cars can only support about six percent (18.000 passengers/hour on all 3 lines; 17 hours of operation/day) of the daily traffic in La Paz at best. Nevertheless, on September 10th 2012, a contract was signed between the Austrian company Doppelmayr and the Bolivian government.
After a construction period of less than 18 months, on May 30th 2014, the first of the three lines with a length of 2664 meters was inaugurated, attended by President Evo Morales. The cars operate 17 hours a day 360 days a year, and are able to transport up to 18.000 people per hour.
All three lines with eleven stations have now been in operation since December 2014, and the network is supposed to be expanded by three more lines to a total of twenty kilometers and 2019 stations and the large-scale project is to be completed with another two lines in the year 23.
Considering the daily rush hours, it doesn't feel like the cable car is making a significant contribution to reducing traffic. Anyway, I'll have to take a look at that. The price is affordable at the equivalent of about thirty centimes. In return, you get a round trip on one of the lines. There are a few intermediate stations where you can get off or on.
Up to El Alto
As soon as you enter the lower station, you feel like you're in a different world, a highly modern world that is state-of-the-art in terms of technology and organization.
So pretty much the opposite of the 'normal' La Paz.
The 'Linea Roja' climbs up to El Alto, the sister city, as already mentioned the place where the less well-off reside. As soon as you sit in the cabin, it may as well be any cable car in Switzerland, the only things missing are the green (or white) slopes, the fir trees and the grazing cows.
El Alto - Home of the poor
A million red roofs glide slowly by below us.
At the top, you're at over 4000 meters, and the cold has increased. There is nothing more to say about El Alto. The houses give a poor impression, apparently El Alto is indeed the home of the poorer part of the population.
Looking for the best vantage point overlooking the city, I walk down the long main street, wondering about tiny huts and the women sitting in front of them, all busy firing up some kind of grill.
I can only speculate. I wouldn't be surprised if the smell of barbecue starts to curl around my nose in the foreseeable future. However, I can do without the things sizzling on the grills.
But the view down to the city and the surrounding area is breathtaking. White-powdered peaks flash on the horizon, the high mountains are not far away. They remind me of my first visit to La Paz and the deranged idea of going to the nearby ski resort.
The trip with the jeep of the corresponding organization is long and tedious, but leads along lapis lazuli blue lakes in the middle of brown lifeless desert up to almost 5000 meters. So after the ascent of Kilimanjaro, this is the second highest point I have ever been.
And indeed, the roar of a diesel engine can be heard from afar, and then, nevertheless a bit surprised, the jeep stops at a snow-covered slope on which a ski lift is actually in operation.
However, you have to forget everything you might expect from a normal ski lift. There are no seats, no discs, no hangers, just a steel cable pulling the brave skiers up the slope. But how do you hold on to the rope? Not so easy. In addition to the skis and poles, you get a rope that is initially viewed with incomprehension and suspicion and needs an explanation. Actually, it's quite simple (at least that's what we're assured): you take the rope, throw it over the tow rope, wind it around it as fast as you can until it holds to some extent, and let yourself be pulled up, where, with a little luck, you master the reverse process.
I enjoy watching the action for a while, amused to see the bravest struggling to pull themselves up. At least the slope seems to be okay, but a queasy feeling keeps me from trying the highest ski slope in the world myself. I have little desire to end up in a hospital in La Paz with a broken leg. The trail to the highest point in the area with a corresponding view of the snowy surroundings compensates a little for the missed ski adventure.
The Linea Azul
The 'Linea Azul' leads further along El Alto. So I pay the fee of thirty centimes and let myself be carried in airy altitude above the city.
From the gondola, you have a superb view of and especially into the houses, which may be a bit voyeuristic, but is a lot of fun. So it's quite possible to watch a woman peeling potatoes in the kitchen and answer her puzzled look with a polite nod.
Most of the houses are suited to the level of prosperity of the El Alto inhabitants, i.e. poor, dirty (the backyards!), the rooms small, the terraces used in the fewest cases. There are maybe two or three apartments where I could imagine living, however, geographically located about 10'000 kilometers to the northeast.
But certainly not in El Alto ...
The cemetery - Residences for the dead
On the way back to town, I get off at the midway station. The municipal cemetery is nearby on the slope (in La Paz everything is somehow on a slope) and since cemeteries have a strange fascination, I can't miss it.
The view from the gondola opens up the view to some strange buildings, which are not identifiable at first sight. But the travel guide instructs me, that this is the famous municipal cemetery.
And once again, this cemetery is different from all the ones I have seen so far. It is one of the most impressive, together with the one in Buenos Aires.
It is huge, laid out with streets and alleys labeled by name so that you can find the exit again (which of course I can't). They are lined by high thick walls, at the fronts of which openings of perhaps 50x70x30 centimeters are let in above and next to each other. The backs of the openings are brick-walled, and behind them lie the coffins.
In front of them, however, as in our country, the names and dates of the deceased can be found, surrounded by fresh or withered bouquets of flowers, by pictures of the deceased, by inscriptions, by objects that were the property of the deceased and - once again extremely irritating - in almost every grave opening there are small plastic flowers moving back and forth, probably battery-operated.
I might walk for hours along the partially artfully and lovingly maintained burial caves, read the inscriptions, sympathize with the melancholy and grief speaking from the strange square openings ...
Mileage: 3991
Matching Song: The Yardbirds - Still I'm sad
And here the trip continues ... to Puno in Peru
