He llegado!

For the rest of my life, I'll never forget my first view of La Paz. (FYI -- not from the plane; i was still sleeping, of course). When you leave the airport, you drive through the neighborhood called El Alto, the poor part of town. Oddly enough, La Paz's neighborhoods are kind of reversed, compared to American standards. The poor people live at the higher altitude and the affluent live lower down the mountain.

Anyway, you drive through El Alto and can't help but notice that red lights are merely suggestions at 6 a.m., that three cars can actually fit across a two lane road, and public transportation involves hopping on a minibus while it's still moving. The driving wasn't quite as terrifying as in Beijing but then again, it was only 6 a.m.

But you get passed the craziness and suddenly, you find yourself on a winding road on the side of a mountain and the most breathtaking vista breaks before you -- the city of La Paz below you, nestled between mountains with the morning mist just lifing and the snow-covered peak of Illumani looming in the distance. Oh. My. God. You can't actually speak when you see that for the first time. Yes, even I was speechless and that view will be emblazoned in my memory for eternity.

I'm staying with a lovely couple in Zona Sur, the nicer part of the city. And you can very quickly tell when you cross into Zona Sur from the downtown area -- beautiful houses with flowers, trees and nicely manicured lawns. Orieta and Saul live in an apartment building on the fifth floor -- and I'm almost embarrassed to say that I was huffing and puffing by the time I got to their door. You don't really think the altitude has affected you until you climb a flight of stairs and you're light headed, with your heart pounding, gasping for air.

Luckily for me, John and Michelle haven't planned out a very rigid schedule for me, so there's plenty of time and space for spontaneous travel and events. We shall see what the next 27 days have in store ...