Having read the dire warnings in the Lonely Planet about safety and scams, and having talked with my fiancée's cousin who herself had been a robbing victim in La Paz we were more than a little concerned about the city.
We also both read Rusty Young's Marching Powder (a book about San Pedro prison in central La Paz, which I would highly recommend) on our way through Argentina, so our view of the city was slighty slanted as a den of corruption and police brutality (note to self too much info can be a dangerous thing).
Had the other half not needed to get a visa for Brazil (apparently being Australian in South American is annoying) we'd have certainly not spent the 4 days we did there. In fact we may have skipped it all together.
We didn't arrive in the best of moods, despite paying and astronomical 130 bolivianos each (13 pounds, but bear in mind the rest of our transport around bolivia was about 30 bolivianos a trip) for the bus from sucre to la paz to get a suite style seat (literally turns into a fully reclining bed) with bolivias premium bus company el dorado (the golden bus) we didn't get much sleep as the winding road meant every time I dropped off the bus changed the position i was sleeping in.
It was cold, cloudy, raining and early (6:30am) when we arrived so we weren't really in the mood for looking around we just jumped in a taxi for the hotel. We expected to be waiting around for our room but from this moment on la paz surprised us and began to change our minds about it. We were allowed to check in when we arrived (5hours early) and they even gave us a complimentary breakfast that morning !
Although basic the hotel sagannara was centrally located, had friendly staff who spoke english; pretty good Internet access, hot running water all day, cable tv including axn and a pretty comfortable bed
It also had a great view of the city out of the window. We had been so tired we hadn't really looked, but the city view took my breath away (this was a common theme as the altitude of 3800m above sea level will also do that!).
The Main Street (called various things but referred to by the locals as "El Prado") runs along the floor of the valley and streets climb off it at a dizzying rate, house cling to the steep mountainside, beautiful squares abound and the effect is stunning.
We found the people friendly and helpful, we managed to get proper coffee for the first time in a couple of weeks, with a choice of which country the beans came from! The food was also more varied, there were many options from Dumbo's (which is a Bolivian/Mexican chain fast food place), Thai restaurants a plenty (we tried one and it is certainly interesting to see other people's take on a cuisine, which I think I will cover in another blog post) to the fine dining in the Rosario hotel (the food pictured) which was incredibly good quality and put Bolivian cuisine in a fine dining environment at a fraction of what you would expect to pay in most countries.
I think this reminded me of a conversation I had with a friend after he moved into a house in East London, I was asking him if he felt safe walking home from the tube. His reply was that at first he didn't but then he stopped reading the London Metro and Evening Standard (who delight in saying everything is terrible and the city is going to hell in a hand basket) and since then, although he is still sensible and careful he's not been worried at all. I think I now agree reading too much into the dangers can really stop you from enjoying a place. Luckily La Paz is so amazing we'd forgotten most of the bad stuff we'd read almost as soon as we started walking around.
Pictures below (because the iphone blogger software won't let me put it anywhere else) are the food from the hotel Rosario, the beautiful plaza Murillo, San Pedro prison as seen from San Pedro square and the view from outside our hotel on sanganarra street.
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