Bolivia

La Paz sits at 3,640m in a canyon of the Altiplano — the world’s highest seat of government, surrounded by 6,000m peaks. The cable car system (Mi Teleferico, 11 lines, 30km, the largest urban cable car network in the world) for the view over the city. The Witches’ Market (Mercado de las Brujas) for llama foetuses, dried frogs and herbal remedies.

💡 Take the first day slow at 3,640m — altitude sickness (soroche) is real. Drink coca tea (served everywhere), avoid alcohol and heavy meals, walk slowly. Most people acclimatise within 48 hours.

Valle de la Luna (Moon Valley, 10km south of La Paz): eroded clay pinnacles in a badlands landscape formed by rain on the Altiplano. Cholita wrestling — Aymara indigenous women in traditional dress (bowler hats, layered skirts) performing theatrical wrestling bouts — is a genuine cultural phenomenon, not a tourist construct.

💡 Cholita wrestling began as informal entertainment in the 1990s and has evolved into a serious spectacle. The bouts (Sunday evenings at the Multifuncional de Villa El Carmen) involve theatrical storytelling, reversals of fortune and crowd participation. Entry costs BOB 30–50.

40-min flight or 10h overnight bus to Uyuni. The Salar de Uyuni — 10,582km² of salt at 3,656m, the remnant of a prehistoric lake that dried 40,000 years ago — is the largest salt flat in the world and the flattest natural surface on earth (elevation variation: less than 1m across the entire surface).

💡 NASA uses the Salar de Uyuni to calibrate the altimeters of satellites in orbit — the flatness and reflectivity make it the most precise reference surface on earth for remote sensing. The salt crust is 2–10m thick.

Sunrise on the salt flat from a 4WD in silence, 100km from any building. Incahuasi Island (a cactus-covered rocky island in the middle of the salt flat, with cacti up to 12m high, 1,200 years old, no soil — only salt). The Train Cemetery on the edge of Uyuni town: abandoned British steam locomotives rusting in the Altiplano since the 1940s.

💡 The mirror effect on the Salar (November–April after rain) requires a thin layer of water over the salt — typically 5–20cm. It creates a perfect reflection of the sky and clouds with no visible horizon. The most spectacular natural photography subject in South America.

1h flight from Uyuni to Sucre. Sucre (2,790m, UNESCO World Heritage City) is Bolivia’s most beautiful city — whitewashed colonial architecture from the 16th–18th centuries, Baroque churches, the Recoleta viewpoint above. The Casa de la Libertad where Bolivian independence was signed in 1825.

💡 Sucre is the constitutional capital of Bolivia — La Paz is the seat of government, but Sucre retains the Supreme Court. The distinction goes back to a civil war in 1899. Sucre is noticeably more liveable and pleasant than La Paz at 850m lower altitude.

2h30 flight from Sucre to La Paz, then 3h30 bus to Copacabana on Lake Titicaca. Lake Titicaca (3,812m, 8,372km², the highest navigable lake in the world, shared with Peru) has a deep blue that seems impossible at altitude. The floating Uros reed islands on the Peruvian side are 1h by boat.

💡 The Uros are an indigenous people who have lived on man-made floating reed islands on Lake Titicaca for centuries — originally to escape Inca and Aymara raids. The islands are rebuilt continuously from totora reeds; the oldest layers at the bottom slowly rot away.

2h boat from Copacabana to Isla del Sol — the island in Lake Titicaca where, according to Inca mythology, Manco Capac and Mama Ocllo emerged from the water to found the Inca Empire. The Inca Staircase (206 steps), the Fountain of Youth spring and the ridge walk with Bolivian and Peruvian peaks on both sides.

💡 Isla del Sol has no motorised vehicles — the island is reached by boat and traversed entirely on foot. The 12km north–south ridge walk passes through Quechua villages with the lake on both sides.