Welcome to La Paz, the seat of government of Bolivia. The city lies in west-central Bolivia, set in a canyon carved by the Choqueyapu River and ringed by the high mountains of the Altiplano. Watching over it is the triple-peaked Illimani, its summits always covered in snow. At roughly 3,650 metres above sea level, La Paz is the highest administrative capital in the world. It was founded in 1548 by the Spanish conquistador Alonso de Mendoza, and its full name means Our Lady of Peace. Take a slow breath of that thin mountain air, and let us set off on our tour.
Salar de Uyuni
Photo: Anouchka Unel · FAL · Wikimedia CommonsImagine a white plain stretching to the horizon. This is Salar de Uyuni in southwestern Bolivia, the largest salt flat in the world, covering around 10,582 square kilometres. It formed as seven ancient lakes slowly dried out, leaving a layer of salt 8 metres thick. The surface is so flat that its elevation varies by less than a metre across the whole area, which makes it ideal for calibrating the altimeters of Earth observation satellites. And after rain, a thin layer of perfectly still water turns the flat into the world's largest mirror, 129 kilometres across.
Lake Titicaca
Photo: European Space Agency · Attribution · Wikimedia CommonsBefore you shimmers Lake Titicaca, high in the Andes on the border between Bolivia and Peru. It is often called the highest navigable lake in the world, lying at 3,812 metres, and it is the largest lake in South America by both volume and surface area. The lake is really two nearly separate basins joined by the Strait of Tiquina, just 800 metres across at its narrowest. The larger basin plunges to a maximum depth of 284 metres. Although the lake is often described as freshwater, its waters are in fact slightly brackish.
The Witches' Market
Photo: Dan Lundberg · CC BY-SA 2.0 · Wikimedia CommonsWander now into the Witches' Market, spread along Linares Street and its neighbours in La Paz. Most of the goods are sold by Aymara women, and the market is run by local healers known as yatiri, who can be recognised by their black hats and coca pouches full of amulets and powders promising luck, beauty and fertility. Stalls offer potions, medicinal plants and dried frogs. The most famous items are dried llama fetuses, buried beneath the foundations of many Bolivian houses as an offering to the goddess Pachamama. October, the month of Pachamama rituals, is by far the busiest time here.
Valle de la Luna
Photo: CC BY-SA 3.0 · Wikimedia CommonsAbout 10 kilometres south of downtown La Paz lies Valle de la Luna, the Valley of the Moon. Its soil is mostly clay and sandstone rather than solid rock, so erosion has sculpted the hills into craters, spires and caves, described as a desert of stalagmites. Different minerals tint the slopes beige, red and even dark violet. The name is said to come from Neil Armstrong himself, who visited shortly after his moon trip in 1969 and thought the landscape looked like the moon. Look closely and you may spot viscachas and lizards among the cacti.
Mi Teleférico
Photo: Empresa Estatal de Transporte por Cable Mi Teleférico · Public domain · Wikimedia CommonsStep aboard Mi Teleférico, which simply means My Cable Car. This aerial cable car network serves La Paz and its neighbour El Alto, and it is the longest system of its kind in the world. While cable cars elsewhere support existing metro lines, this was the first city to make cable cars the backbone of its whole transit network. Its lines are named by colour, from Red and Yellow to Sky Blue and Silver. Several of them climb the steep slope of about 400 metres between the two cities, which were once linked only by winding, congested roads.
Tiwanaku
Photo: CLAUDIOLD · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia CommonsNear Lake Titicaca, about 70 kilometres from La Paz, lie the ruins of Tiwanaku, one of the largest pre-Columbian archaeological sites in South America. Its remains include decorated ceramics, monumental structures and huge stone blocks, and it has been conservatively estimated that 10,000 to 20,000 people lived here around AD 800. A Jesuit chronicler reported that its old name meant stone in the centre, reflecting the belief that it lay at the centre of the world. Because its inhabitants had no written language, the name they themselves used may have been lost forever.
Plaza Murillo
Photo: Parallelepiped09 · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia CommonsYou are standing in Plaza Murillo, the central square of La Paz and the open space most closely tied to Bolivia's political life. Around you are the Palacio Quemado, the Plurinational Legislative Assembly and the Cathedral of La Paz. The square was laid out in 1558 as part of the city's grid. In colonial times it was known as the Plaza de Armas, and in 1902 it was renamed in honour of Pedro Murillo, the patriot who sparked a revolution for independence in 1809 and was hanged by Spanish troops the following year.
Lomakuume
