Don’t let the visa fees which apply to US citizens or the sketchy public transport dissuade you from including Bolivia in your South American travel itinerary- its varied landscapes of tropical jungles and rivers, high Andean plains, glacial mountain peaks ascending into the clouds, buzzing metropolises, and the highest navigable lake and largest salt flat in the world are continually astounding visitors and bringing Bolivia into their top-ranked travel moments.
The city of La Paz stands at over 3500m above sea level, and El Alto airport at over 4000m; this means that these cities have reduced oxygen levels that can affect visitors from lower altitudes. Frankly, some people feel the sickness the moment they get off the plane. Many travelers don’t feel anything for several hours, and then get hit with attitude sickness symptoms. If you’re traveling to La Paz, Bolivia, you need to have a plan for dealing with altitude sickness, or soroche, as it’s locally known.
The traditional Andean woman, immediately recognizable in voluminous skirts, a bowler hat, and braids, is often referred to as a cholita. The incongruousness between their looks and their killer wrestling moves is what made the cholita wrestlers at the Lucha Libre matches in El Alto so well known. WWF-style wrestling in general is very popular in Bolivia, but at Cholitas Wrestling, the men in extravagant costumes, such as Gitano and Doberman, take a backseat to the more famous cholitas such as La Loca.
The buses of Bolivia offer you the opportunity to save money on travel, and sometimes on food for the day or lodging for the night. They also allow you to see the country in a new way by showing you overlooked landscapes, mixing together national and international travelers, and taking you to towns and cities to which you’d be unable to fly. Along the way, you might spy vicuñas and condors. Depending on the route, and considering that only about 5% of the country’s roads are paves, sometimes it’s an adventure on par with Death Road or mountain climbing!
La Paz offers thrills ranging from mountain climbing to bridge swinging, but the city’s most popular extreme excursion is downhill mountain biking along the Yungas Road to Coroico. Once you’ve experienced the road’s sharp curves, looked down its endlessly steep drops, and ridden through waterfalls, you’ll understand why the Inter-American Development Bank once declared it the world’s most dangerous road.