One hour task = 1/2 day

I remember someone once telling me that when you travel to India, you have to plan your days differently. That instead of expecting to complete a long list of tasks, maybe your task list would consist of just one thing, and maybe that one thing was "eating lunch."

Now, that was never my experience in India. La Paz, on the other hand...

I woke up this morning knowing that I wanted to buy a ticket to Paraguay and book a tour to the salt fields of Uyuni in Bolivia. I figured I'd spend the rest of the day shopping or visiting museums or relaxing.

My friend and I left the house at 10am and by 2:15pm, we'd only managed to cross two things off our to-do list (well, really, one and half as I could only successfully get a one-way ticket to Paraguay).

Here are some of the barriers to getting things done in Bolivia.

Protests: It's hard to go a week without their being a protest in Bolivia. I think this week I've already seen two. The protests tend to be around real issues that affect real people - the price of sugar and oil, rights for miners and indigenous peoples. The problem is, so far as I can tell, is that many of the protests are reactive with no clear overall vision for change. So while a compromise might be brokered in the short-term, there is nothing to prevent the government from similar actions next week or next month. Anyway, the numerous protests cause streets to be blocked off and lead to the next major problem.

The traffic: The traffic in Bolivia is no pretty thing, and the multiple traffic circles around the city don't help much either. Apparently, pedestrians used to be a bit terrorized as they tried to use the zebra crossings (aka crosswalks, for all the Americans out there).This has eased a little due to the work by a non-profit that hires at-risk youth to dress up in zebra costumes and dance in the crosswalks during red lights. It's an entertaining reminder to drivers that this is the time to let others use the crosswalk.

A general lack of urgency: So people from the northeast of the US are notorious for being a toe-tapping, quick-moving bunch, and in my experience, we find that pretty much everyone else in the world moves too slowly for us. So I am willing to admit that my perceptions are very much colored by what I am used to back home. That being said, I saw more than one eye-brow raised when I requested a tour that left tonight for the salt fields (as if, I wasn't at a travel agent in the most touristy place in the city and they didn't get requests like this all of the time). We had about six travel agents tell us that it couldn't be done until...well...it became clear that it could be.