La Paz 7-day itinerary

Arrive in La Paz — either at El Alto airport (4,061m, one of the highest commercial airports in the world) or by bus. The altitude is immediately noticeable. Check into accommodation in the tourist area around Sagárnaga or Sopocachi and rest. Drink coca tea, eat lightly, and walk very slowly. La Paz sits in a deep canyon between 3,200m and 4,100m, and the mere act of climbing a flight of stairs will leave you breathless. Do not underestimate the altitude on arrival day.

Take a gentle walk along Calle Sagárnaga, the main tourist and artisan street in La Paz. The steep road is lined with hostels, tour agencies, craft shops, and restaurants. Browse the textiles, silver jewellery, and alpaca clothing. The street connects to the Witches' Market above and Plaza San Francisco below — a natural corridor through the tourist heart of the city. Walk slowly and stop frequently. The colonial churches and narrow side streets offer glimpses of daily life in this extraordinary vertical city.

Keep the first evening gentle. Find a restaurant near your hotel for sopa de maní (peanut soup), Bolivia's comfort food staple — a rich, warming broth that is gentle on an altitude-stressed stomach. Continue drinking coca tea throughout the evening. The streets around Sagárnaga are lively but La Paz shuts down early by South American standards — most restaurants close by 10pm. An early night is the best investment in tomorrow's energy levels.

Explore the Witches' Market on Calle Linares, where cholita vendors sell dried llama foetuses, miniature houses, love potions, and ritual items for Aymara ceremonies. These are not souvenirs — they are genuine spiritual goods used in Pachamama offerings. Walk downhill to Plaza Murillo, flanked by the Presidential Palace, Cathedral, and Congress. The colonial centre has a faded grandeur and the steep streets constantly reveal Illimani's snow-capped summit between the buildings.

Ride the Mi Teleférico cable car system across La Paz. Take the Red Line to El Alto for the most dramatic views — the cable car lifts you from the canyon floor to the Altiplano rim at 4,100m and the panorama of La Paz below is staggering. El Alto is a vast, sprawling Aymara city of over a million people on the plateau above La Paz — a completely different world from the canyon below. Ride back down and connect to the Green and Yellow lines for perspectives across the southern zone.

Explore the Sopocachi neighbourhood for dinner — La Paz's most cosmopolitan area with craft breweries, international restaurants, and a growing café culture. Try pique macho (chopped steak, sausage, potatoes, and chillies) or silpancho (breaded beef on rice with fried egg). The local craft beer scene is excellent — Saya Beer and Kholita are both worth trying. Walk to Mirador Killi Killi for the nighttime city view before heading back to your accommodation.

Depart at 7am for the drive to La Cumbre pass at 4,650m. The tour operator provides mountain bikes, helmets, gloves, and full-face visors. The air at the pass is freezing and the landscape is barren Altiplano. After a safety briefing, the first section is a 22km descent on paved road to warm up your braking and balance. The scenery transitions from high-altitude grassland to the beginning of cloud forest as the road winds down towards the famous single-track section.

The gravel section begins — the original North Yungas Road carved into the cliff face. The road is 3 metres wide with sheer 600m drops and no guardrails. This was once the most dangerous road in the world, killing 200-300 travellers per year before the new highway diverted traffic. Now it is virtually traffic-free and one of the world's great cycling descents. The temperature rises from near-freezing to 25°C, the vegetation shifts from sparse to lush jungle, and waterfalls cascade across the road surface.

Arrive at Yolosa (1,100m) — warm, tropical, and 3,500m below where you started. Lunch, a pool swim, and group celebrations are included. The sense of achievement is enormous — you have descended from Altiplano to jungle in a single ride. The return drive to La Paz takes 3 hours up the new highway. Arrive back exhausted but elated. A hot shower, steak dinner, and a Huari beer in Sopocachi is the perfect end to the day.

Take a micro or taxi to Valle de la Luna in the Mallasa neighbourhood, 10km south of the centre. The eroded clay pinnacles and canyons resemble a lunar landscape — centuries of wind and rain have sculpted the soft sedimentary rock into spires, bridges, and crevasses. The walking circuit takes 45 minutes and weaves through the most dramatic formations. Morning light creates the strongest shadows and the most photogenic conditions. The site is at 3,300m — warmer and more comfortable than central La Paz.

Visit the colonial Calle Jaén, a beautifully preserved cobblestone street housing four small museums in colonial mansions — the Museo del Litoral (Bolivia's lost coast), Museo de Metales Preciosos (gold and silver), Museo del Folklore (masks and costumes), and Casa de Murillo (independence history). A combined ticket covers all four. The ethnography museum on Calle Ingavi is also excellent, covering Bolivia's cultural diversity from highland Aymara to lowland Guaraní. La Paz has surprisingly rich museums that most tourists overlook.

Explore Mercado Rodriguez, La Paz's largest and most chaotic market. The sprawling stalls sell everything from fresh meat and vegetables to electronics and clothing. The food section is where you eat like a Paceño — api con pastel (hot purple corn drink with fried cheese pastry), tucumanas (deep-fried turnovers), and anticuchos (grilled beef heart skewers). The market is authentic, affordable, and overwhelming in the best possible way. End the evening at a craft brewery in Sopocachi.

Take a tour or public bus from La Paz (1.5 hours) to Tiwanaku, the ruins of a pre-Inca civilisation that dominated the Altiplano from 400-1000 CE. The city once held 20,000-40,000 people and its influence extended across modern Bolivia, Peru, and Chile. The Akapana pyramid, the largest structure, is partially excavated and the scale of the stone engineering is impressive. The Kalasasaya temple compound contains the famous Gateway of the Sun — a massive carved stone archway with the image of the Staff God, a central deity of Andean cosmology.

Walk to the separate Puma Punku complex, 1km from the main Tiwanaku site. The stone blocks here feature impossibly precise cuts, right angles, and interlocking joints that have fuelled centuries of speculation about how a pre-wheel civilisation achieved such engineering. The blocks weigh up to 130 tonnes and were transported from quarries 10km away. Visit the site museum, which houses the Bennett Monolith replica and excellent exhibits on Tiwanaku agriculture, urban planning, and collapse — possibly caused by prolonged drought.

Return to La Paz in the late afternoon. The drive back passes through the open Altiplano with views of Lake Titicaca in the distance on clear days. The landscape is stark and beautiful — brown grassland stretching to snow-capped peaks on the horizon. Back in La Paz, have dinner at a restaurant in the Rosario area. Try sajta de pollo (chicken in a spicy peanut and chilli sauce) or charque de llama (dried llama jerky) — both are distinctly Bolivian dishes you will not find elsewhere.

Take the teleférico to El Alto and explore the massive Feria 16 de Julio (Thursday and Sunday only), one of the largest open-air markets in South America. The market sprawls across dozens of blocks and sells everything imaginable — second-hand clothing, car parts, electronics, food, and household goods. The scale is overwhelming and the atmosphere is pure Bolivian Altiplano — Aymara women in bowler hats and pollera skirts haggling over goods, brass bands playing in the streets, and the smell of frying api and anticuchos.

Explore El Alto's extraordinary "cholet" architecture — neo-Andean buildings designed by architect Freddy Mamani that combine traditional Aymara geometric patterns with bold colours and futuristic shapes. The buildings house ballrooms and event spaces on upper floors with commercial space below, and their façades are covered in vivid geometric patterns in electric blues, greens, yellows, and pinks. Mamani's work has become internationally celebrated and El Alto is now an architectural destination in its own right.

Attend cholita wrestling at the El Alto multifunctional centre (Thursdays and Sundays from 5pm). Indigenous Aymara women in traditional pollera skirts and bowler hats body-slam, pile-drive, and pin opponents in a wrestling ring while the crowd roars. The show combines genuine athletic skill with theatrical entertainment and deep cultural significance — cholita wrestlers are empowerment icons in Bolivia. The atmosphere is electric, the crowd is mixed local and tourist, and the experience is utterly unique to La Paz.

Join a morning tour to Chacaltaya, the former site of the world's highest ski slope at 5,300m. The glacier that supported the ski area has melted entirely — a powerful visual lesson in climate change — but the mountain remains accessible and the views from the summit are extraordinary. On clear days you can see Lake Titicaca, Huayna Potosí (6,088m), and across the Altiplano to the Cordillera Real. The thin air at 5,300m makes breathing difficult and every step is laboured, but the panorama is worth the effort.

Return to La Paz for final shopping on Sagárnaga street and the artisan market. Bolivian textiles, silver jewellery, and alpaca clothing offer excellent value — significantly cheaper than Peru or Ecuador for comparable quality. The Witches' Market sells miniature replica items as souvenirs — tiny houses, cars, and money bundles that are traditionally purchased and blessed for good fortune. Bolivian chocolate from the Yungas region is also excellent and makes a unique gift.

End your La Paz week with a farewell dinner overlooking the city lights. La Paz is one of the most extraordinary cities in the world — a million people living in a canyon at the roof of the Andes, where indigenous traditions, colonial history, and modern ambition collide. The El Alto airport is 30 minutes from the centre by taxi or teleférico plus taxi. Alternatively, night buses to Uyuni (10 hours), Sucre (12 hours), and Copacabana (4 hours) depart from the main terminal.