La Paz, in Gold and Blue
23 May, 2017 | Sophie Hogan
Photos: Sophie Hogan
Text: Aida Muratoglu
when they told us the sun would set earlier in May than it did in December
I felt a tinge of betrayal
winter in La Paz nothing like the
snow day-filled, salty-shoed, air-too-cold-it-burns-your-lungs
season I grew up on
instead, shade too cold, sun too hot when this removed from the
mechanised movements of sea level
fruit eerily ripe
sold in streets of worn out brick and midday salteña stops
under sweet tangle of telephone wires
5 am El Alto cloudy purple api stewing in pots
waiting to singe morning-bleary tongues
dogs sniff at pedestrian feet for bite of pastel
melted cheese stretching from pastry to mouth
fluttery clouds obscure regal Illimani
later, patchwork flicker of lights from warm comfort of yellow teleférico
the resilient speed of this city filtering through salchipapa-filled stomachs
