Bolivia
SOUTH AMERICA · 6 PLACES
Bolivia stacks a 10,000km2 salt mirror, the world's highest capital and deep Amazon rainforest into one country. It is South America's least polished and most rewarding place to be short of breath.
La Paz
Cable cars, markets and Death Road, with acclimatisation already banked.
Uyuni
Salt flats plus the three-day southwest lagoons circuit.
Sucre
Land here, not La Paz: 2,790m is the gentlest possible start on altitude.
Copacabana
Lake Titicaca and Isla del Sol at a much slower pulse.
Potosi
Two nights at 4,067m, but only after Sucre has done its work on you.
Rurrenabaque
Drop to 200m for Madidi and the easiest breathing of the trip.
One month here
Land here, not La Paz: 2,790m is the gentlest possible start on altitude.
Two nights at 4,067m, but only after Sucre has done its work on you.
Salt flats plus the three-day southwest lagoons circuit.
Cable cars, markets and Death Road, with acclimatisation already banked.
Lake Titicaca and Isla del Sol at a much slower pulse.
Drop to 200m for Madidi and the easiest breathing of the trip.
Three months here
Spanish school, colonial courtyards and a forgiving altitude base.
Mint museum, silver history, and thin, cold, brilliant air.
Time to catch both a sunrise mirror and a dry-season horizon.
Long enough to treat El Alto and the Yungas as day trips.
Island nights, trout lunches and the Peru border within reach.
Deep Madidi lodges, pampas, and river time at sea-level ease.
Festivals worth flying for
Carnaval de Oruro · February/March
UNESCO-listed Diablada parade: 28,000 dancers, 400,000 onlookers, three days of devils.
Alasitas · 24 January
La Paz buys miniature houses, cash and cars, blessed so the real thing follows.
Fiesta del Gran Poder · May/June
La Paz's biggest folkloric parade: thousands of dancers wind through the old city.
Virgen de Copacabana · 2 February and 5-6 August
Pilgrims, brass bands and dancing at the lakeside basilica; cars blessed outside.
Phujllay, Tarabuco · March
Tarabuco villagers mark an 1816 victory in montera helmets and stamping boots.
Dia de las Natitas · 8 November
La Paz honours decorated human skulls kept as household protectors.
In an emergency
Emergency number 110 police / 118 ambulance / 119 fire
Numbers per FCDO. Altitude sickness is real above 3,600m: ascend slowly, skip alcohol on day one, and descend if headache and vomiting worsen.
Language
Spanish, plus Quechua and Aymara; 36 official languages in all.
Money
Cash country: bolivianos in small notes. Cards work in cities only; ATMs thin out beyond them.
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