Sausage, marathons and shiny skirts

Travel makes me a different person sometimes. Is it the different sets of longitude and latitude coordinates or the living under foreign cultural norms that produces a novel set of behaviors? Quien sabe? The amazingness is noting how these subtle differences translate into the default world. A kink there, a bit more freedom here and slight tweak to the entire color scheme. But if the changes translate back home, are they actually changes in behavior? Or just behaviors that receive extra emphasis in certain moments?

Did I feel different walking around La Paz? Engaging in one of my favorite traveling activities: walking around with no plan, no destination, just observing what is. Like how the American Embassy, with its high walls, barbed wire, video cameras and armed guards, is different than Spain's Embassy, with a facade reminiscent of a large brown and white victorian house. Maybe I felt less encumbered.

Passing the time strolling from the top of La Paz, down El Prado, on a Sunday morning, a guy passes me wearing a number like one would see in a marathon, then another, then another and another and all of the sudden I'm swimming in marathoners freshly finished with a race at 12,000ft. Impressive. Wandering through the red faced, huffing and puffing throngs I found my prize: street food. The popular post marathon snack in La Paz? A deep fried sausage sandwich! Opting for just meat and bread, as my stomach is still adjusting to the local flora and fauna, it was an excellent mix of hot, crunchy, juicy and spicy. A perfect pick me up after a long morning walk, or a marathon, at 12,000ft.

Nibbling on my sausage I found a public health and environment awareness fair! Booths for local activist groups, NGOs, government offices, people passing out free seedlings and presentations about a vast array of topics, including global warming. Demonstrations by kung fu groups, a performance by the local goths, Bolivian punks pushing pamphlets and an aging dirty English gutter punk hippie preaching veganism. There was a fair amount of graffiti denouncing meat eating around town, so was it just him or is there a local interest in veganism? The health fair and the marathon were great snippets of La Paz life.

Oh, ladies, if you are ever wondering what to wear on a sunday in La Paz, a shiny, multi layered ruffled skirt is the correct answer. I'll happily bring one back for you, if you'd like.