I finally got to La Paz from New york. After exploring New York for a full layover, then Mexico City I am finally ready to relax. Mexico city was pretty nice. I had a friend show me around and we went to the rooftop bar there in one of the famous buildings. I met a guy dressed up as a gingerbread man so of course took a photo with him and just walked around a bunch at some of the markets in the city.
The next day I flew to La Paz and I taxied over to my couchsurfing friend’s house. Apparently you can’t pick up ubers or Didis now at the airport so you have to pay the $297 pesos to get anywhere in La Paz. Super dumb. I despise the taxi mafias in all these cities because they are WAY overpriced and the service is (almost) always awful.
I showed up at Oswaldo and Wendy’s place and chatted with them for a bit. They are working on a kombucha business so I offered to buy a bunch of bottles of it and told them if they ever legitimized their business I would definitely be interested in investing in it. I really believe they would do a great job with it.
I drove to my airbnb, checked in, and dropped my stuff off. Then went downtown La Paz to get a little something to eat. I went to a place called Arkansa Cocina but I really wasn’t impressed with the food. It was all barbeque (American style) and I guess I just really don’t like the type of food. I then went down to the beach area to walk around and explore a little.
I was sitting on some concrete right in front of the beach and there were some groups nearby drinking, dancing, and having lots of fun. All of a sudden a drugged up guy came and sat at a bench near me.
It was incredibly interesting what happened next right in front of me. After about 8 minutes 2 big cop trucks rolled up on the guy and all the cops stormed out and surrounded him immediately. I thought the guy would just talk to them but he immediately pulled out a machete and started swinging. I though he would be shot immediately but none of the police shot. It was literally about 20 feet away from me so I backed up and gave them some space. I left the helmet where I was sitting and was pretty scared.
For whatever reason one of the police picked up the helmets I guess to use as a weapon against the guy. He threw the helmet which ended up in the Ocean soaking wet. He then picked up again and brought with him into the police truck as they chased after the guy. It was wild watching all the trucks roll by looking for the guy. I waited at the bench and walked around to look for the missing glove. I just found one glove and waited around some more wondering why the hell they don’t issue the police motorcycle helmets if that’s clearly a better weapon than the weapons they are issued.
Finally after about 20 minutes he came back and handed me the helmet which was dripping wet but magically still had the other glove inside. I was pretty happy because it would have been hard to replace. They are pretty good gloves. But the clear plastic face shield had broken off which I knew would be hard to find.
I finally headed out from there and got some much needed rest.