La Paz (some more)

Hola:
Just after I posted yesterday, the rain came. Because it is still the ¨rainy season¨, the forecast for La Paz calls for rain everyday. Most days, there might be a little shower, but many days there is nothing and we have found after three trips here during the season that the rain really isn´t that bad and doesn´t interfere with plans. However, twice on this trip there have been absolute down-pours, once in Aucapata in the morning when the street turned to a river and yesterday afternoon when I was posting to the blog and Joy was out painting. There was some thunder and lightening, but it was the amount of water that impressed. The flow on the busy street in front of the internet place was getting so deep that I fully expected the cars to start floating by. Even the hail wasn´t too bad, but the wading back to the hostal on flooded sidewalks was uncomfortable. La Paz is built in a canyon and earlier this year a portion of the hillside collapsed during this kind of storm. When you watch big chunks of construction material rolling down the streets propelled by water flow and gravity, you can understand why.
I did manage to get back to the officina of IMIF for our wind-up meeting and after the staff took us out for dinner. It was a tearful fairwell with Lucy, Ernest, Amparo, Yumey, Ivonne and Danilo. They presented us with 2 beautiful silver gifts that you will see this summer in the gallery. They are wonderful people and you should drop in to say ¨hello¨if you are in La Paz or Aucapata.
Today was our chance to get rid of left-over Bolivianos and do some shopping. We walked over to Calle Sagarnaga, the home of the ¨Witches Market¨a must for tourists, to do some shopping. I won´t tell you what we bought, but I have no idea how Joy is going to get it all in her pack. She says that she is going to throw out all her clothes, and I think that that might be a start. My pack is filled with ëxperimental Quinua bars for Ivar Mendez to run tests on. I am not certain how I will explain them should I be asked. I have some in my carry-on as they are really good! Tomorrow we leave the hostal at 7:30am and hope that our tickets purchased a month ago at Huarez get us to Lima where we booked in at the Hostal Espana for a few days of R&R before heading home on Tuesday night late.
Jim