FAVORITE TOURIST ATTRACTIONS IN BOLIVIA
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I thought I'd share some of my favorite tourist attractions in Bolivia with those of you who are interested in places other than Santa Cruz. There are hundreds of websites about Western Bolivia online, some of them in understandable (if not perfect) English so my motivation to build this website stems from the fact that there are very few websites dedicated exclusively to Eastern Bolivia, and none are written in native English. What began as a Santa Cruz website will soon be covering all of Eastern Bolivia as we are now adding dozens of new tours and site in Tarija and Beni! Still, I've traveled to every department in Bolivia except Pando and I've completely fallen in love with each and every place I've been. I think I can honestly say there isn't a corner of Bolivia I don't treasure. So let me tell you a little about some of my favorite tourist attractions in Bolivia by simply listing a few special little things I like about each of Bolivia's departments.
La Paz
La Paz is where I spent most of my childhood. The city has grown immensely since then. El Alto was an empty plain with nothing but the airport and the tiny town of Viacha when I went to grade school and graduated from high school there. Good times! La Paz has a lot of great museums and art galleries. Visit my friend
Susana Castillo,
one of Bolivia's most renowned artists. For a cultural experience, visit during February - Alasitas Fair and Carnaval. Buy and Ekkeko (the god of abundance) and load him up with miniatures of all the things you want him to bring you during the coming year (you can even buy a miniature visa he he). I love eating a saltena on the Prado at about 10 in the morning when the air is still cool and brisk, and a cuñapé with tea at 5 near Plaza Murillo (by the way at Plaza Murillo in the morning around 10 am you can see the changing of the guards at the government palace too). The Montículo is an overlook in Sopocachi where you can take a walk through a small plaza high above the city and look out over it. It's a prime location for photos of Illimani, when it's not clouded over, which is like, almost always. The Witches Market behind the San Francisco Cathedral is a definite must if you want to learn about weird traditions, like why dead llama fetuses are buried under new constructions. A visit to Peña Naira at night for folkloric singing and dancing and drinks in a dark stuffy little room makes for one good evening. If you're in La Paz near the end of February, one of the neatest things you can do is visit the Alasitas fair. It's a huge outdoor fair where everything you can possibly imagine is sold in miniature. Click here to see why. One of the absolutely most bizarre tours in Bolivia is the San Pedro Prison Tour. I used to visit the prisons in La Paz with my mom as a child and it's heartbreaking. I can understand why this would attract tourists, but I personally believe taking this tour is ridiculous and beyond stupid. These tours supposedly don't exist any more after the combined stupidity of prisoners, guards and badly behaved tourists led to a prisoner mutiny. A trip to the Valley of the Moon is a great day trip. Careful climbing around, the soil is soft and breaks away easily. Chacaltaya, past there, is where the Zoo is located. You can also ride horses, but they're usually kind of old and saggy. Have lunch at Los Lobos. Laikakota is a park in Miraflores just a few blocks from the Stadium. It's built up on a hill in the center of the city. Has several playgrounds and you can't take better photos anywhere! From this vantage point, you have a 360º view of the city. I scaled the Muela del Diablo (Devil's Tooth) several times as a teen. It used to be a 6-hour climb. Now you can take a bus almost all the way to the top. At night the city lights look like a great big handprint from El Alto down to Calacoto. Calacoto, in the southern half of the city, is an upscale neighborhood with lots of foreigners. I went to school there. Now it's full of discotheques, boutiques and stores, malls, gyms, and lot of other stuff. Sundays are soccer day. Catch a game at the stadium in Miraflores. Buy your tickets a few hours in advance.
Copacabana and Lake Titikaka
Copacabana and Lake Titicaca
are Bolivia's most valued landmark, I think. My fondest memory is skimming across the lake on a hydrofoil to Peru - about 6 hours. On the Island of the Sun you can get out and do some hiking and see some Incan ruins. If you plan to spend the night there take food! The Island of the Moon is much smaller, but also pretty. Skip the pizza and have some Titicaca Trout on the shore in Copa. It doesn't get fresher than water-to-grill. Skip Copa around February 2nd unless you're into hundreds of people dancing drunkenly in the streets and stay at the Andean Eco Village in Huatajata instead.
The Yungas (Coroico, Chulumani, Caranavi)
and Driving or Cycling Death Road
To the North take a trip to Coroico. The road is above the clouds and the views are breath taking. Also visit Chulumani and if you're adventurous, go all the way to Caranavi. Hike up to Radio Hill and visit the missionaries who provided the first electricity, radio and TV stations there. They're building a tourist complex now and have a small plane and runway. (They are totally cool!)Death Road lives up to its name. Over 300 people go over the edge each year and die. If you take one of the advertised bike tours, please don't take their instructions lightly. It'll cost you your life.
Tiahuanaco (Tiwanaku)
Up on the highlands in the opposite direction, Tiwanaku (sometimes spelled Tiahuanaco) was the ceremonial epicenter of Andean culture for thousands of years and has a great museum and of course, ruins of temples and monoliths as well as the Puerta del Sol (Sun Gate) that shouldn't be missed. See this great video series on the legends and myths that surround this unearthly city and hear what scientists have to say about whether or not Tiwanaku is the oldest city on Earth.
Carnaval in Oruro
Oruro has nothing special to see except during Carnaval when you'll catch the biggest, best spectacle Bolivia has to offer. Plan your trip ahead if you want to spend the night in Oruro because the little hotels and families that rent out rooms in their homes get booked months in advance. Otherwise catch a "trufibus" in the morning and return at night back and forth from La Paz. Dancers train and artisans make their $1000 costumes throughout nearly the entire year! It's up to 8 days of drinking and dancing. Your best bet is to visit on the first day when they're not drunk. Bring snacks and a rain jacket. Be prepared to get doused with water balloons or beer spray or paint or colored powder that takes days to wash off of your skin and hair.
Carnaval
is amazing. The costumes are dizzyingly colorful. Each group of dancers and each different costume symbolizes a time in Bolivia's colonial history (Carnaval began during the Renaissance period, AFTER the arrival of the Spaniards). Contrary to popular tourist belief, Carnaval is not an Andean historical ritual prior to Colonial times. Each dance depicts a portion of the Spanish conquest. You'll see African slaves, devil dancers, Spaniards and Catholic priests, and lots of other characters, a mix of Catholic personages and Andean gods. Over it's 450 years of existence it has come to be seen as a ritual dance to appease El Tio (the devil), so he won't bring bad luck.
Potosí
During colonial times,
Potosí
was the most populated city on Earth! I know, can you even believe that?! There was so much silver in the mines at Cerro Rico the Spanish (and Bolivians after them) have mined it for over 500 years. Tin overtook silver to become Bolivia's prime export during World Wars I and II (I wonder why duh) and as of only about 14 years ago oil and natural gas from Eastern Bolivia (Santa Cruz and Tarija) have replaced tin to fill Bolivia's coffers.In Potosí the two most interesting things are the mines and the Casa de la Moneda. When I was little women were not allowed into the mines. Only men could go in. The miners believed that El Tio would cave the mines in if women entered. Working conditions have not improved at all over the past 30 years and although tourists can now enter some of the shafts, I don't really suggest going too far in. Safety from falling rocks and cave-ins is a problem even for miners today, as they dynamite indiscrepantly. But the other problem is the silica. Miners have an average life-span of 45 years because they spend their entire lives breathing in the invisible silica particles that are like fiber glass that cuts away at their lungs. The Casa de la Moneda (the Spanish MINT) is where the Spanish turned much of the silver into imprinted silver coins before sending shiploads of them to the King of Spain. It's an extremely interesting museum now.
Uyuni
Salar de Uyuni
(a vast plain of sea salt many meters deep) is one of the most popular tourist attractions in Bolivia. Three million acres (12,000 square kilometers) of blinding white salt are were left behind millions of years ago by the receding ocean. It's vast and extremely flat expanse is enjoyed by tourists who like to play with the optical illusions the lack of horizon cause - super fun photo opps. Located at over 3000 meters above sea level, it gets very very cold here at night. You can stay at a hotel where everything right down to the furniture is made completely out of salt bricks. Getting to Uyuni.
Sucre
Sucre
is one of my favorite cities in Bolivia. It's totally colonial architecture is beautiful and it's everywhere. There's a large park across the street from the Supreme Court building where kids can "climb" a rusty replica of the Eiffel Tower. Everywhere you look the houses have European balconies, there are tons of antique shops where you can get European antiques that are hundreds of years old, and pay attention to the glass in many of the windows of the homes and buildings on the center plaza - many still have centuries-old French glass panes.Other places to visit include the Recoleta at the top of the hill where the convent is to get a great view of the entire city and the cemetery which is gorgeous and where many of Bolivia's former presidents are buried. Little kids give you a complete tour with a history lesson to boot. Also, there are several cool bars and restaurants. I personally like La Tertulia which is kind of quiet and dark and a great place to have some coffee and a good read. Sucre has the cleanest market I've ever seen anywhere in Bolivia. There are several beautiful colonial churches, lot of great architecture, beautiful parks and plazas, and really nice people. There is also a historical museum and the Casa de la Libertad, where the first Bolivian constitution was signed and there are several colonial paintings and documents on display. Lastly, visit the natural history museum where you can see pieces of pottery, weavings, and even mummies that are thousands of years old. Strangely, at night Sucre reminds me of Cuzco. If you go to the main plaza in Sucre you can find the DINO TRUCK and take a day tour (it's only about 4-5 hours total) to the world's largest repository of dinosaur footprints ever found! CalOrcko. They'll have you there and back in 1/2 a day for about Bs. 50! Don't miss the museums in Sucre. Especially the Ethnographic museum where you can see mummies and all kinds of cool stuff. And at the weaving museum you can see people weaving on looms.
Beni
I've gone to Beni many times and recently returned. I'm now busy building a whole section on
Beni
on the site. One of my favorite places is
Rurrenabaque
but I really can't decide. It's all SO beautiful. Take a look for yourself.
Santa Cruz
This entire website is/was dedicated almost exclusively to Santa Cruz, so of course I have an entire section on
Tourism
and another on
Ecotourism
here. Click here to see why I just LOVE living in
Santa Cruz.
I add stuff to the Santa Cruz section EVERY DAY!!!
Cochabamba
I've been to Cochabamba a LOT over the past 30 years. One of the main attractions is it's huge statue of Jesus which stands atop a high hill overlooking the entire city. You can actually enter the statue and look out some tiny window-holes it has. Cochabamba has a large outdoor market called La Cancha where you can get lots of stuff really cheap like clothing and handcrafts. There are other outdoor markets too, but La Cancha is where locals and tourists alike all shop. If you're in Cocha, it's worth the 2-3 hour trip out to Villa Tunari, although this is Bolivia's main coca producing region and there are times when it may not be safe for American tourists. Usually any aggression is politically motivated. Villa Tunari is located in the Carrasco National Park area and is absolutely GORGEOUS. It's also where Inti Wara Yassi's Machia Park animal refuge is located, although the future of this refuge is uncertain as local authorities have begin to build an illegal road through this national protected area. Back to Cocha the city. There are some great clubs if you're into night life and also a really nice botanical garden. Cochabamba has some wonderful large cathedrals and churches you can see too. I'll be writing more in the future about
Cochabamba.
Tarija
Since this website is primarily about Eastern Bolivia, Tarija is the next section we're building for you on this site. Tarija is Bolivia's stunningly beautiful southern-most department. It's known for its beautiful flowers and amazing wines and singani (an alcohol that is clear like vodka but made from grapes).Tarija is a tiny department, but has a lot to see. Visit this page on Easter in Tarija and contact my friend Silvia at Brujula Travel to arrange for Tarija tours in the meantime.
Pando
Pando is the only Bolivian department I haven't traveled too. At this time there is much tension in Pando as it has been militarized and unfortunately it's a terrible time for foreigners, especially American tourists, to visit. Pando has an interesting past. It lost half of its territory to Brazil (the northernmost region of Acre, now know as the Brazilian state of Acre). Read my History section to learn why this is one of the reasons Pando is the most sparsely populated department of Bolivia. When it becomes possible to travel to Pando safely again, I am SO going there!
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