Tourism in La Paz city, Bolivia

Visit La Paz, a cosmopolitan city. And enjoy the hotels and lodgings service, besides the varied gastronomy of the place.

The department of La Paz is composed of three distinct regions: a highland plain (El Altiplano), valley and subtropical zone (Yungas). It has 20 provinces and 272 cantons.

The city of La Paz is a cosmopolitan city which is both multiethnic and multicultural. It is surrounded by the Andean mountain range where two very prominent and majestic snow capped peaks dominate the landscape, these being the Illimani and the Illampu.

Although the Aymara race is predominant in La Paz, there are a variety of ethnics races coming from all areas of Bolivia. This is most evident during the religious feasts where people will dress up in their traditional costumes and will perform very distinctive dances, depending on the region they come from.

Tourist attractions

There are many tourist attractions in the city of La Paz, wich was founded in 1548, like churches, museums and open air markets. The colonial architecture (late 1500's) is preserved in buildings like the church of San Francisco, and in the many building on Jaen Street. Among the museums is the home of Pedro Murillo; a hero of Bolivian independence, and the Gold Museum, which contains gold items from the pre-Columbian cultures.

Two other fine colonial architectural examples are the Art Museum and Tambo Quirquincho, which has been recently remodeled. The Tambo Quirquincho has a very important national art collection.

Among the many interesting museums are the Tiwanacu Museum, which is considered the cradle of the American culture (500 BC / 1200 AD) and the Ethnography and Folklore Museum with some very fine ethnic exhibits and both have very interesting and extensive libraries.

We recommended that to visit the indigenous markets and visit the adjacent streets to San Francisco's Church. It is also a must to visit the Magicians Market on a narrow pebbled streets behind the church of "San Francisco". Here you will find many curious items offered for sale by the Yatiris Aymara - healers, who use these same items in their "healing" arts.

For its geographical location, the Department of La Paz, shares eco-systems of the plateau and the tropics. Los Yungas, in La Paz constitutes a beautiful example of tropical area. To visit the Andean area, away only one hour by bus, by a paved highway the beautiful and spectacular Tikikaka is reached. It is at 3.900 meters asl, with its islands in which the Inca culture established its most important ceremonial centers, such as the Sun and Moon Islands.

The Sun Island is a wonderful attraction in the lake, since the view is spectacular with the everlasting snow-capped peaks of the Royal Mountain Range in the background.

Another important island is Suriqui whose inhabitants are the builders of the Totora floating planks under the traditional techniques, which, in sample of enormous size, have been subject of transoceanic experiences, such as RA II and Tigris for the Norwegian Thor Heyerdal, and Uru for the Spanish Quintin Muñoz.

To the north of Titicaca Lake we have the important population centers such as Achacachi, Carabuco, Talaba, and so on. In Carabuco Church we can find important colonial pictures. Following toward to the frontier with Perú, we reach the Ulla Ulla Natural Reserve. Beginning in La Paz, the zone in surrounded by picturesque indigenous towns, interesting weekly bartering markets in some of those towns and zones of high ethnographic value, such as Aukapata with its pre-Tiwanaku ruins, and the towns of Charazani and Curva, home of the famous Kallawayas or doctors of the Andes, experts of the arts of Natural Medicine. We can also find beautiful textiles in Amarate town.

Copacabana is the most important center of Titicaca Lake. Copacabana is originally a pre-Columbian ceremonial and astronomy observation center destroyed by the Spaniards whose traces remained in the lithic ruins that we find in the outskirts. On its place, the sculpture in wood by an aborigine of that place of the beautiful Virgin of Copacabana Sanctuary was built in the XVI century. Its altar is lined with gold and silver and the costumes of the small image are crowded with jewelry of the colonial epoch.

If this may be too little, during our stay in La Paz, the impressive Tiwanaku ruins are still left for us to visit, a flourishing civilization on the plateau to the south of Titikaka Lake, which became one of the greatest and most advanced of the continent, with a contents that is not yet determined totally, but, above all, it is subject of deep research in the last years.

Ecotourist attractiveness

La Paz has innumerable roads constructed before the arrival of the Spaniards. It is a wide net and well-built road that communicates the plateau with the fertile regions of the valleys and the Amazon plains. At present they are the disposal of those visitors who love trekking in the number of some 15 pre-Colombian roads.

Also, at only an hour trip from La Paz towards the northern we face up the majestic and imposing Royal Mountain Range of the Andes with snow-capped peaks of an altitude that range between 5.500 meters asl. The practice of alpinism finds in La Paz its most important center to project the climbing of most of the peaks of this mountains range of 150 kilometers spread. The Chacaltaya snow-capped peak, one of the most beautiful of the mountain range, it is a natural ski ramp.

Ethnics groups

The ethnic groups that inhabit the highland plane and valley zone are the Aymaras and Quechuas. In the subtropical zone, named the Yungas, inhabit the Chamas, Guacanaguas and Lecos; this is a wonderful area with abundant vegetation, rivers and cascades, fruit-bearing trees and coffee and coca plantations.

Hotels in La Paz city