Day 73: Fancy dress

Everything in this city is for sale in the street. It is one big marketplace. You will find a stall for staplers, one for toilet rolls and one, of course, for chicken skeletons.

Women set up shop on the pavement, dressed in traditional costume, complete with thick socks, skirt and bowler hat, carrying their wares in a big multicoloured shawl.

I have asked taxi drivers why it is that women dress traditionally but not men. One suggested it was because men in La Paz were more likely to have jobs that required shirt and trousers.

THINGS I DIDN´T KNOW BEFORE TODAY
1. The bowler hat worn by women was adopted from the British
2. And their skirt was once a symbol of Spanish oppression, but has now become a badge of pride in being indigenous
3. Even their traditional middle parting was imposed by the Spanish, and is still followed today