Visiting friends and colleagues

We love to have friends, family members, and colleagues visiting us in La Paz. There are many attractions in and around La Paz, but the cheapest and in my opinion most satisfying is a hike in the mountains. In November 2000, Celia Cornejo and I brought our colleague Rob Faris from Harvard University on a hike to "Muela del Diablo." It is an afternoon hike that brings you from our house, up the mountains, through a little village, to a rock called "The Devil's molar tooth", and down again trough a new and very exclusive neighborhood. On the way there are some spectacular views of the city below.

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Robert Faris and Celia Cornejo, La Paz, November 2000.

During December 2000 we enjoyed the visits of Diana Weinhold from London School of Economics and Manfred Wiebelt from Kiel Institute of World Economics. The three of us hiked up to the local ski-resort in La Paz, Chacaltaya at 5.300 meters above sea level. It was great to feel snow again, but the cosmic rays are so strong there that even on a completely cloudy day I got a severe sun burn. Diana was smarter than I. When we passed the observatory where they collect and study cosmic rays, she figured that it was a good idea to shield herself against them, and she put her thick coat over her head.

Chacaltaya in La Paz

Diana Weinhold, Lykke Andersen, and Manfred Wiebelt, Chacaltaya, December 2000.

 

Palka Trail
Lykke Andersen and Per Skrumsager,
Palka trail, February 2001.

 In February 2001, my parents and Per, an old friend from highschool and university, came to visit us and my father, Per and I did the beautiful 5 hour hike from Ovejuyo to Palka. Part of the trip you have to walk in a riverbed and it is generally not recommended to do it in the rainy season, but we did it anyway and it added some challenges.

The river cuts through clay mountains, which means that you at times walk between 50 meter high walls of clay. In the rainy season large chunks of clay fall down regularly, which is why it is not recommended to be walking there

The biggest challenge, however, is to find a ride back to La Paz from Palka. Otherwise it becomes a very long day of walking.

To the left is Per and I standing on a rock by the riverbed.


Julius Spatz from Kiel Instute for World Economics was visiting researcher at IISEC for some months in 2002 and 2003. One Saturday we invited him to attend an Aymaran ceremony for improving our luck.  A few days after the ceremony he got an article accepted for publication, so he concluded that it works.

Below he is getting his future read in coca-leaves by an Aymara witch doctor.

Julius Spatz and an Aymaran witch doctor

Julius Spatz getting his future read in coca-leaves, January 2003.

My mother, my aunt Anny, and my cousin Mia were not so lucky when they came to visit us in October 2003. They arrived just the day before the revolution broke out and the city of La Paz was closed down. I was lucky to get them down from the airport on some of the last drops of gasoline in the city, but then we spent a week locked inside our house, because the Danish Embassy called every day and told us that it was too dangerous to go out. We did sneak out every day anyway, just to see what was going on and to see if we could find some food. This is what Calle 25 in Los Pinos looked like one morning.

 

Our neighborhood, Los Pinos, during the October 2003 revolution in La Paz.

It was a frustrating period because nobody knew how long it would last. I was alone with the three kids, because Osvaldo was stuck in Chile and his flight to La Paz for the kids' Birthdays was cancelled and my cook and babysitters were all stuck in other parts of La Paz. So for me it was extremely lucky to get help from Denmark. The other good thing was that the weather was absolutely perfect and the kids were playing with water in the garden all week, happy to get an unexpected vacation, but sad that their Birthday parties had to be cancelled. My family had good insurances and their respective insurance companies had agreed to organize and pay for evacuation, but just when they were ready to leave with a helicopter, the President of Bolivia resigned and everything returned to normal again. The following morning, there were food in the stores and gasoline on the gasoline stations and when we went for a walk downtown I heard a Bolivian man comment "Oh, the tourists have returned, that's great!"