La Paz, Bolivia

La Paz has one of the highest, and most dramatic city settings we’ve ever experienced. It is densely packed throughout a network of canyons, right at the base of Bolivia’s striking Cordillera Real mountain range. The huge and vibrant city of over one million people ranges in elevation from 3,200 m (10,500 ft) to over 3,700 m (12,000 ft)! And as with other great cities of our travels, it also has a full complement of art, gardens, protests, museums, murals, processions, craft beer, interesting architecture, and fancy local food (including a chance to take a picture with the exceptional kitchen staff!) that we were obliged to experience.

Just above La Paz, on the high, flat, altiplano plateau at elevation 4150 m (13,615 ft) lies El Alto, La Paz’s sister (alter ego?) city, sprawling, apparently uncontrolled, for miles in all directions. It is largely an urban center of indigenous Aymara people (the group from which Evo hails). The interrelationship between these two cities is complicated and fascinating. Bolivians we met throughout the country had told us that El Alto holds significant sway, and sometimes outright control over La Paz, because virtually all roads to La Paz go through El Alto, and the airport for both cities is located up there as well. So El Alto is able to bring La Paz to a halt through strikes and blockades whenever it likes, which apparently is with some regularity.

“Cholitas” are indigenous Aymara and Quechua women of Bolivia (and to a lesser extent other Andean countries) dressed in an iconic fashion which includes wide, colorful and layered skirts, braids with ornamental ends, and bowler hats. You see them throughout the country, but en masse in El Alto, sporting lots of fringe, bling, and often decorative gold caps on their teeth. At a store specializing in Cholita clothing, Kacia couldn’t help but take a look at what creates those voluminous skirts!

Like other sections of indigenous culture in Bolivia, the cholitas have seen a rise in stature and influence over the last decade, which is beautifully documented in pictures in this article from the Guardian. In their rise to prominence, cholitas have also asserted their growing independence by taking up professional wrestling -- The Flying Cholitas are now the hit of El Alto’s wrestling matches!

With Leo, an expressive (modern day hippie) guide, we found Tiwanaku to be a bit of a missing link for us and our understanding of the rapid rise of the amazing Inca empire. Founded around 110 A.D., just a few hundred years after Chavin de Huantar, which we visited in Peru, we could start to see the evolution of finer stone work and precision astronomical layout. There were still many unexplained mysteries laid out in front of us, especially because Bolivia’s archaeological sites are so poorly maintained that in cases like Tiwanaku they remain largely buried to protect the site’s artifacts.

We reunited with crazy Leo for a day hike up “Pico Austria”, near the impressive peak of “El Condoriri” (named for its resemblance to a condor stretching its wings). The view from Pico Austria’s 5,320 m/17,454 ft summit was spectacular, and was such an up-close-and-personal experience with the Cordillera that we decided we had to come back to the area on our own, for an unguided, 3-day, 30 km trek around Huayna Potosi (the 6,088 m [~20,000 ft] peak directly behind us in the photo with Leo).

It was late spring, so there were still large snow pads on many of the south-facing slopes (remember, we’re in the southern hemisphere!), which made for some exciting and wet going from time to time. The hike elevation averaged over 4,500m (15,000 ft), with the passes nearing 5,200m (17,000 ft), and on the first day we crossed two passes. We finished in a valley on the shores of a high lake, camping in the lee of an unoccupied hut in a micro “village” of just 3 - 4 houses, asking permission of the only shepherd family who was there at the time.

The second day, we climbed passed an abandoned mining complex, then crossed some very steep talus slopes on our way over a pass to our highest campsite of the entire trip, on the shore of a small cirque lake at over 4,900 m (16,000 ft). We were surrounded by glaciation, including huge moraines and deeply scarred rocks - it was magnificent!

We took a bus from La Paz to Copacabana on the shore of Lake Titicaca. This included a short “ferry” in which the bus passengers were shuttled in a couple of wooden boats and the bus on a wooden barge propelled by a small outboard motor.

People come to visit the virgin inside the famous Basilica of Our Lady of Copacabana (which dates from 1679), and to make the pilgrimage up the town’s mountain to the virgin’s shrine on top. Even at sunset, the line stretched halfway down the mountain, with vendors selling candles and virgin memorabilia all the way up and down the trail. The downtown was crammed full of stalls selling all forms of food, crafts, and plastic scale models of things people can ask the virgin’s help in getting, including cholets, cars, animals, and stacks of money. 

The elaborate car-blessing ceremony involved incense, chanting, praying, and spraying beer generously inside/outside the car and all over the engine. Car decorations almost always included a colorful party hat, which was left on for weeks after the event (as we know because we saw them weeks later during our ride to Cusco).

So we joined a Dutch family and an Israeli couple and hired a boatman. Along the way, after probing questions in Spanish from Kacia, the boatman explained that a long-standing dispute between the island’s three villages still raged on… over territorial rights, and equitable distribution of the tourist dollars flowing in. He advised us to just keep walking and play dumb if we were stopped by any villagers along the way. 

As the sun was setting, we finally arrived at the island’s south end, where we stayed in a lovely guesthouse and enjoyed a delicious candlelight dinner. Clearly, the southern village has the most to offer, and is getting the most from the visiting tourists, but they need to sort things out with their fellow islanders to give those tourists access to the entire island, or tourists may decide the trip over isn’t worthwhile.