The Fishers in La Paz, Bolivia

Yesterday, we decided to find the local children’s museum in La Paz. Finding it was no problem, but once we got there, we were very confused. We paid the equivalent of a little over a dollar for our family at an outdoor ticket booth, and then walked through the gates. We saw rows of run-down buildings in what you could tell used to be a simulated village area, but everything was closed and completely deserted. There was a crumbling structure that you could tell used to be a monorail to take you higher up on the mountain, but it had certainly not been used in quite a while. Tom eventually walked back to ask the lady at the ticket booth what was going on. She simply said to “go up”. Then we saw the precarious stone steps up the mountain with a big building at the top. We slowly ascended to be greeted by a stray dog (very common here!). We found the entrance to the museum and began to explore inside. The part that depressed me was that you could tell when it was built ten years ago the exhibits and facility were comparable to any decent children’s museum in the States. However, due to lack of money, will or who knows what, it had been allowed to fall into total disrepair. It seemed that no cleaning, painting, repairs, etc. had been done in many years; even the light fixtures were ripped out of the ceilings. Avery still enjoyed herself but I don’t think we’ll go back anytime soon. Now I’ll have to find out the story of what happened there. . .