The Road to a View

It is a matter of gradient and compass points. The poor live on the highest ground and the rich live in the valley. If you travel home with the compass needle facing towards the North of La Paz you are travelling in a micro bus heading back to an existence. If the needle is pointing South you are most probably in a Mercedes heading for indulgence in Zona Sur.
But its not all bad news for those working in the valley of the wealthy and fighting for a seat in a micro taxi to make their way back, at the end of a twelve hour shift, to the very top of the hill.
There is for example a very effective system of neighbourhood watch in the higher barrios which the rich would never envisage or consider. It is the hanging of a mannequin with a hangman's noose around its neck at the entrance to a street . The stuffed figure swings in black clothes, perpetually sinister. It is a warning to thieves that the residents of the street have decided, by committee, that should a burglary occur in their neighbourhood, the perpetrator will be traced and strung up from the hook from which the mannequin will be removed.
It would seem to be a necessary precaution for certainly shopping on the ascent appeared a little unusual. An item was ordered from the street and delivered through bars. No shop in the barrio I was riding through actually having a door.

The second real advantage and perhaps the principal one, is that in compensation for living on the poorest ground in the most impoverished of districts, Pachamama,  that is sacred Mother Earth in Bolivian delivers to the impoverished each and every day of their existence this 360 degree spectacle that must be considered one of the most breathtaking cosmopolitan vistas ever experienced by mankind.