Observations about Bolivia mostly

Ok now we have been through:
La Paz
A Salar de Uyuni (and beyond) tour
Copacabana and Isla del Sol and Luna
Puno, Peru

Some things I have noticed:
- a lot of dogs have jackets.
- menus have either two choices (local spots) or 500 (tourist spots). Both can be good or bad.
- ATMs in Bolivia are great; they give you lots of small change. In Peru so far they are terrible because they all seem to charge a 5% fee.
- prices for big things (cars, etc) are listed in USD. This doesn't make sense to me; is it just to avoid the sticker shock of "7000 bolivianos" and "1000 USD" sounds better?
- altitude sickness can happen even after a week or more. It can make migraines even worse! It can also manifest in weird ways, like making small problems seem like big problems.
- Bolivia seems entirely cool and very low tourist hassle. I remember seeing some map saying that Bolivia was one of the most foreigner-unfriendly countries, and in our experience that couldn't be further from the truth. Peru (well, Puno so far at least) seems like there are annoyingly more hawkers and touts.
- I find it hard to enjoy things when there's even a moderate amount of discomfort. Like, kinda-wet socks level of discomfort. I think this is a major weakness in my character.
- bathrooms have been great. They usually cost 1 or 2 (or 5) bolivianos ($1=7 Bs) but they are pretty clean.
- Llamas have long banana-shaped ears. Alpacas have short stubby ears and are softer and really just overall cuter. Vicuñas look like deer.

Altitude and cold are bad, teleféricos and airbnb experiences are great?

We are in La Paz, Bolivia!

1. Altitude and cold are bad.
We're at 10,000 ft, and nights get down to maybe the 30s, and central heating kinda isn't a thing? We've got a space heater. Anyway, I haven't really felt 100% the whole time I've been here, and it's gotta be that, right? Like, my stomach is just kinda not hungry for anything and when I do eat, it feels bad. Luckily, we're otherwise doing well.

When my stomach feels "ehh", it also makes me feel mentally "ehh", and I've had a couple of really sad moments so far. That's weird. Gives more evidence to the "depression is caused by feeling bad" hypothesis (as opposed to the "depression is caused by meaninglessness" hypothesis).

2. I think teleféricos are great?
There's gondolas! That go over the whole city! There are 10 lines and like 30 stops! That's how you can get around! It's so cool. And really genius for a city that's like a bunch of little islands between the mountains. They're pleasantly full but never seem to have lines. They cost Bs.3 = $0.50. Waiting for someone to tell me why "actually, they're bad", because they seem pretty great.

3. I think "Airbnb experiences" are great?
A guy named Javier was offering mountain bike tours, he had 30 references and positive reviews, so I went biking with him. It was also so cool. Like, he's just a guy, with a lot of biking-in-La-Paz experience; I could talk to him as a person, not a tour operator. Waiting for someone to tell me why "actually, this is bad" too; I would be less surprised because I'm sure the San Francisco Venture Capital machine will find a way to suck all the humanity out of it or destroy some other industry or whatever, but in the meantime it seems pretty great.

I'll show you photos later. Blogger's mobile app seems to have been made in 2009 and not updated since then, so I don't even know if I can add photos here. (Of course. The SFVC machine doesn't care about maintenance.)