Things to do
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Calle Jaén
Colonial houses painted in ochre and blue line a cobbled lane a few blocks from the centre, the best preserved street of its period in La Paz. Five small museums sit along it, covering precious metals, musical instruments and the independence wars, and a single ticket covers most of them. Monday closures catch visits out.
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Chacaltaya
A ski lodge at about 5,300 metres stands above a glacier that finished melting in 2009, and the road to it is now a route to a viewpoint over the Cordillera Real and the Altiplano. The walk from the lodge to the summit ridge takes twenty minutes and feels far longer at that height. Acclimatisation in La Paz first is essential.
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Death Road
The old Yungas road drops some 3,500 metres from La Cumbre pass to Coroico on a single gravel track cut into the cliff, once the main route to the lowlands and notorious for the lorries that went over the edge. Traffic moved to a new highway in 2006, leaving it to mountain bikers. Operators vary in the state of their brakes and guides.
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Mi Teleférico
Cable cars carry commuters over the canyon on a network of coloured lines built as public transport and, for a visitor, the clearest way to read the city's shape. The Red and Yellow lines climb to El Alto; the Purple crosses the southern valleys. Fares are flat, cards are sold at stations, and queues build at rush hour.
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Plaza Murillo
Pigeons, pensioners and armed guards share the square that holds the presidential palace, the congress and the cathedral. A clock on the congress facade runs backwards, installed in 2014 as a statement about southern time. Protests and marches converge here regularly, which can close the surrounding streets with little warning.
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Tiwanaku
Long before the Inca, a state centred on this site governed much of the southern Andes from around 500 to 1000 AD, leaving the Gate of the Sun, the sunken temple and the Akapana platform. Much of the stone was carried off for churches and rail ballast. Two museums hold the finds, and the site is open and cold, so wind gear helps.
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Valle de la Luna
Erosion has cut the clay hills south of the city into spines and hollows, a landscape of pale towers on the road towards Mallasa. Two marked circuits, short and long, take under an hour between them on narrow paths. Cable car and minibus both reach it, and midday light flattens the formations, so early or late works better.
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Witches' Market
Stalls along Calle Linares sell the materials of Aymara ritual: herbs, amulets, soapstone figures and dried llama foetuses, buried under new buildings as an offering to Pachamama. Vendors are yatiri, trained healers, and the trade serves the neighbourhood as much as the tourist. Photographs of the stalls are often refused, so asking first is the courtesy.