Foto: The sprawling city of La Paz lies in a basin (bron: Ronald van der Veer)
Bolivia - The luggage is loaded onto two minibusses and through the very busy traffic of La Paz and via the toll road, we are brought to our hotel. Our hotel is located in the city center. La Paz is situated in a basin, with the poor district El Alto and the airport at about 4,100 meters. The city center lies around 3,600 meters, and the rich neighborhoods are lower, around 3,200 meters. This makes La Paz the only city in the world where the rich live low and the poor live high. La Paz is often called the highest capital city in the world. In fact, La Paz is not the capital; Sucre is officially the capital of Bolivia. La Paz, however, with over 13 million inhabitants, is by far the economically most important city. In the afternoon, we walk into La Paz via the witch market. At one of the stalls, I buy a wall hanging for home. Through the city center, we arrive at Hotel Presidente, a five-star hotel in the middle of the city. On the top floor, we order soup for lunch. We enjoy the view. The waiter also shows us the bar on the sixteenth floor. Actually, the bar is closed at this time. From here, we have an even better view over this metropolis. Back downstairs, we head to the central square in front of the palace and the cathedral. Then we go via the post office and the San Francisco Church to the market behind our hotel. At this market, many counterfeit brand clothes are sold. The street goes steeply uphill. At the top, we walk back to the hotel through the normal streets.
Awe for the miners of Potosi
Bolivia - The mine tunnel is still accessible. Sometimes the passage is a bit lower, so a helmet comes in handy. At the entrance of the small museum, there is a small recess where the whole group can sit and clear the rails for the carts carrying mine gravel that ...
Laguna Verde
Bolivia - The Bolivian border lies in the mountains and in the middle of basically nowhere. Again, we fill in a visa form and get a stamp. The whole ritual is becoming familiar. After about an hour, everything is arranged, the luggage is loaded onto the four jeeps, ...
Salt flats of Salar de Uyuni
Bolivia - Without any more flat tires, around half past three we drive onto the salt lake. A strange sensation. The lake most resembles a frozen and snow-covered lake. The enormous surface area (about one-fifth of the Netherlands) makes the lake and the journey ...
The excavations of Tiahuanaco
Bolivia - At half past eight, the bus departs for Tiwanaku. Here lie the ancient ruins of the Tiwanaku culture. Between 500 and 1200 AD, they were already far ahead of their time. Even now, it is still a mystery with which tools they built the structures. On the ...