La Paz, Bolivia - The Highest Capital City in the World

After Coroico, Jeremy and I headed to La Paz, the highest capital city in the world at 4014 meters or about 13169 feet. Of course, like everywhere we travel in Bolivia, getting there was at least half of the adventure.

Getting to La Paz

To get to La Paz from Coroico, we needed to take a mini-bus (more like a tall 15 passenger van) that was only to be 3.5 hours. Not surprisingly, it took 5. First, we needed to take a rough cliff road through small rivers and under small waterfalls. Happily, because we were headed to La Paz (and leaving La Paz), we had the mountain-side right-of-way (not the cliff-side) if we came across another vehicle going the opposite way. This was a bit bizarre because it meant that we were driving on the left-side of the road, but it also meant that we were safe.

The same road going in the opposite direction from La Paz to Coroico is actually considered the world´s most dangerous road. This is because vehicles going that direction always need to stay cliff-side on a very narrow road. But for those concerned with our safety, I repeat, we weren´t on the world´s most dangerous road because of the direction we were going. Jeremy and I had no desire whatsoever to take the world´s most dangerous road, so we didn´t.

After being on this rough road for about 2 hours, we took the best road we´d seen (and felt) in Bolivia yet. It was a newly-paved road and made for a very pleasant change from the extremely bumpy dirt roads we´d been traveling on thus far. Of course, things couldn´t stay smooth however and they didn´t. To make a long story short, we ended up with 2 flat tires and only 1 spare. The driver had to hitch a ride to get one of the flat tires filled so that we could continue on to La Paz. Craziness, but it worked!

Around La Paz

The main reason we were going to La Paz was to get some business taken care of: our visas for Brazil and apartment business for Jeremy. Unfortunately, with the flat tires, we arrived in La Paz on Friday at around 5pm, after business hours, so the business had to wait until Monday. In the end, that worked out well because both of us came down with a bit of altitude sickness, so we took the opportunity to rest.

Other than the business items that took much longer than planned (we stayed in La Paz a full week), we did a walking tour of the markets around Central La Paz, visited the fascinating museum dedicated to the history of the coca leaf, watched the movie "Happy Feet" dubbed in Spanish at a American-style movie theater, and ate at some good restaurants - Arab food, amazing pizza, homemade pasta, and authentic Bolivian restaurants too. Here´s a picture of a typical street market in La Paz.

Two of the most common Bolivian breakfast foods are saltenas and empanadas. We had our fair share of each during our stay in La Paz. Both are variations on a turnover, usually filled with cheese, beef, or chicken. Saltenas are a bit different because are a bit spicier and also include vegetables. Here are some empanadas!


Another thing that I think was interesting about La Paz was the public transportation. There are these micro-buses, similar to the one we took from Coroico to La Paz, that go on specified routes. One person hangs his/her head out the window and calls the names of the places the "bus" is going. It stops anywhere along the route with the wave of a prospective passenger´s hand. The ride is very cheap... usually only 1 boliviano which is roughly 13 cents. This is another type of bus in La Paz...


In general, we had an okay time in La Paz. With only a week to spend in such a big city, it´s hard to find your way around! Besides, Jeremy and I have found that we prefer smaller towns. In fact, we arrived in a small town called Uyuni this morning. Tomorrow, we will begin a 3-day / 2-night tour from here that is supposed to be the highlight of many tourists in Bolivia -- THE SALT FLATS!!!