Just like watching Brazil!

In fact I did watch Brazil last sunday in La Paz. But the better team was not made up of Robinho, Adriano and Gilberto (yes, I got to see an Arsenal player!) but Bolivia. It may have been the altitude that helped or hindered, or perhaps that the fixture was meaningless, but the Samba stars were lucky to escape with a 1-1 draw. It was all a bit too little, too late for Bolivia though as they finished bottom of the South American World Cup qualification group. I forgot how much I love La Paz. It is a crazy city with its maze of little streets, steep slopes, ramshackle buildings, modern sky scrapers, picturesque squares, squalor, haute cuisine restaurants and even a disco next door to the infamous San Pedro prison. Cochabamba definitely has the climate going for it, but the capital wins any day for architecture, buzz and variety. I will just have to make do with regular visits (via a seven hour bus ride). Apart from the football, I met more of Marioly´s family (of course), went to a rock concert, walked around a lot and gatecrashed an ex-pat get together in a bar, thanks to my friend Nick, where I got to meet DFID´s Bolivian director. It seems Britain´s development programme in Bolivia is more strategic rather than project orientated, whatever that means!