📸 Photo

CHANGE OF PLANS

I caught a bus that night. The journey to La Paz was seventeen hours and the first part, to the city of Cochabamba, was over a dirt road filled with potholes. During the night, we stopped at several military checkpoints. At one of them, armed soldiers led sniffer dogs through the cabin and over the luggage stowed in the compartments beneath. I pretended to be asleep. My baggage-claim tickets were screwed up tightly in my pocket. There was nothing else linking me to the suitcases; however, I was still a little worried that the dogs might find my merchandise. But they didn't; the job was perfect.

After dawn, the bus began its ascent towards La Paz. As we climbed higher and higher up the Andean mountain range, the windows steamed up and the other passengers pulled out blankets they had brought with them. I sat there shivering until we arrived at the terminal just before midday.

La Paz was a shock to my system after Santa Cruz. Apart from the cold, the first thing I noticed was the altitude. When I stepped off the bus, I couldn't breathe properly because of the lack of oxygen. I had to get the taxi driver to help me carry my suitcases because I felt like I was going to faint. The whole look and feel of the city was also completely different. Santa Cruz is flat and spread out and its roads are wide. The buildings are only a few storeys high, even in the business centre. However, the streets in La Paz are narrow and winding and blocked with traffic. I was now surrounded by multi-storey office blocks and billboards. It didn't seem like I was in Bolivia anymore. Even the people looked and dressed differently.

I checked into a cheap hotel on Avenida Pando then rang the colonel from a telephone booth down the street. He must have been expecting the call because he answered the phone in English.
‘Hello?’
‘Um. Aló,’ I said. ‘Colonel Lanza, por favor.’ The colonel recognised my accent immediately.
‘Ah, Mr Thomas. You must call me Mario, please. How are you?’
He had a pleasant voice and spoke firmly.
‘OK, then. Mario. I’m fine, thank you.’
We spoke briefly and arranged for him to pick me up from my hotel at eight o'clock in order to eat a meal together.