Pico Verde and Gustu

La Paz, Bolivia -- March 27-30 -- Day 3-6

Today we finished our fourth day of classes here in La Paz. We had learned about the Pico Verde language school on-line, so on Monday morning, we walked over only to find the big wooden doors locked. Since our last email exchange had been more than a week ago, we wondered whether we'd actually be able to start. Fortunately, after lunch, we found the doors open.

We chatted with the woman in the office and quickly agreed on one teacher for Dex and Kylie and another for Meg and me, three hours a day for five days. To our delight, she made a few phone calls and managed to get a couple teachers on board. Even better, we could start that afternoon at 3:00. We just needed notebooks and the cash -- $7 per person per hour (not too bad for semi private lessons).

For the first day, the woman who ran the office taught Dex and Kylie since their regular instructor, Bruce, wouldn't be available until Tuesday. All in all, we have really enjoyed the classes. Bruce has been excellent with the kids coming up with different games for them to play. Dex even said tonight that he’d really like to spend three or four weeks here so he’d really be able to say a few things. Franz, Meg's and my excellent instructor, did his best to take us through the most critical parts of speech. Often we would start to talk about some topic or activity and before we knew it forty minutes had gone by. Of course, trying to piece together sentences was largely what we had come for.

Kylie and Dex with Bruce

Our instructor, Franz

Besides classes and a little bit of homework, we were able to finalize the rest of our time in South America during the week. Similar to Southeast Asia, we are packing a lot in a short period of time. After class on Friday, we have a three-day Salar de Uyuni tour booked complete with overnight bus on each end. We also settled on an organized Salkantay trek to Machu Picchu two days after the salt flats, which will require a third over night bus to get from La Paz across the border to Cusco, Peru. We had planned initially to do the trek on our own. However, with just barely enough time to fit it in before heading to Ecuador for the Galapagos, it started to look like getting the gear, food and organizing the buses, train and entrance tickets might leave us a day short, so an organized tour it is.

On Wednesday, after class, we decided to see some more of the city so went to the “must see” (according to the Lonely Planet) Museo de Metales Precioces. Hmm, I'm not sure what the writer of the guidebook was thinking, but it was definitely a bit of a disappointment. The supposed highlight was the Sala de Oro with a few small golden figurines of people and llamas and a complete set of royal decorations -- head dress, necklaces, chest plates and a dozen thin metal disks. Unfortunately, there was almost no information on any of the displays -- nothing about dates, places, people, significance etc. The same went for the pottery displays (and, no pictures allowed in the museum).

La Paz street market

Fresh juice

Typical meat and potato "saltena"

Afterward the museum, we decided to ride the two other teleferico lines, the yellow and green lines, just to see more of the city and grab dinner in what was supposed to be the nicer part of town. It took a while just to get to the tram. We asked at a nearby restaurant if they could call a taxi for us since the general rule is that you only ride in official taxis, not ones hailed off the street. The woman from the restaurant ended up leading us to and accompanying us in a collectivo (micro bus) to a different part of town. She then flagged down a taxi, confirmed the fare before letting us hop in. As before, the Teleferico ride was a fabulous way to see the crowded hills and canyons of the city.

Sprawling La Paz

At the end of the line, we searched Google for restaurants and selected the first one within a half mile that was open (we were hungry and many opened later in the evening.) After walking a half mile through a residential neighborhood, we found the restaurant. Hmm, it was definitely a bit fancier than we expected. The hostess, surprised that we didn't have reservations, tactfully ignored our T-shirts and zip-off pants. I started mentally preparing myself for the bill as we were led to a table in the back corner. A few Google searches and we soon learned that by dumb luck, we just happened to wander into what is apparently one of the best restaurants (#14) in all of South America.

Started by Claus Meyer of Denmark, the restaurant has only been around since 2013.  Meyer is apparently well known in culinary circles for co-founding Noma in Copenhagen and being a leading advocate of the New Nordic Cuisine Movement -- the goal is to use only locally grown, traditional food, and encourage environmentally friendly production.  Meyers apparently chose Bolivia for his latest venture specifically due to it's low income, underdeveloped cuisine, and low crime rate.  His goal is to "drive social change through food."  

Suffice it to say, the food and service were excellent.  Bertil, our waiter, had worked at Noma and moved to La Paz when the restaurant was started.  He carefully explained each of our selections, which included raw alpaca, rabbit, trout, and pork. Dessert was still more avant guard.  We were apparently ahead of the normal 9:00 crowd, so before we left, Bertil took us on a tour of the kitchen, the downstairs prep areas, and bakery.  Our simple dinner had turned into a fantastic experience and we left feeling incredibly lucky to have stumbled upon Gustu.  If you're ever in La Paz....