La Paz, Bolivia (February 2023)

Finally, we arrived at La Paz, Bolivia. La Paz is Bolivia's de facto capital although the political capital remains Sucre. I will explain more later. La Paz's elevation is 11,893 feet high and its airport is located in El Alto, 13,615 feet high. El Alto Airport is one of the highest civil airports in the world.

Bolivia has a population of 12 million inhabitants. It is a constitutional republic with an elected president, an elected body of parliament members, and the supreme court. But, its administrative system is yet to develop because it is still quite bureaucratic. It took us almost two hours to clear the immigration process without a long queue of passengers. We were the last ones to claim our luggage. Signs were not clear and we had to switch counters three times. The visa fee was $160 also, Quite expensive. There were tourists who passed out because of the altitude. We allowed one Korean young lady to go ahead of us because she looked so ill.

Juan Carlos came out to pick us up. He spent many years in Europe so his English was quite good. He took us to the hotel we would be checking in later, Ritz Apart Hotel, and picked up Mr. and Mrs. Samuel Kim to do the La Paz city tour. They also had their own fiasco at the airport. Mrs. Kim literally had to lie down on the floor because of altitude sickness and Mr. Kim got scammed by a uniformed officer on the visa fee. But, he was able to recover most of the money, fortunately. So instead of Mr. and Mrs. Yoon who had to return home early due to the COVID-19 virus infection, Mr. and Mrs. Kim joined our group to make us five members again.

The first place we visited was Moon Valley or Valle de la Luna. It was named as such because Neal Armstrong, one of the first astronauts who put their footsteps on the moon came to visit this place and said that it looked like the moon's surface. The area's soil was so fragile and getting eroded everyday by rain and wind.

We then went to Plaza de Murrillo located downtown in La Paz. It was a central plaza surrounded by the Bolivia Presidential Office, the Parliament, and the Basilica of Roman Catholic. The Presidential Office was guarded by a small number of officers and a group of indigenous people was taking a group photo, which Carlos said was rare.

We started walking in the Spanish District which the Spaniards took when they conquered the land. We continued walking into the Indigenous District where the conditions looked apparently poorer than the 
Spanish District. We passed through the Witch's Market where many superstitious kinds of stuff were displayed and being sold.

Carlos took us to a lookout point where we could see most of La Paz city which was located in the valley and on the hills. The flat land was very scarce and the city was running out of space for building housing for the residents. Most of the houses were covered and built with red bricks, making the entire city look red.

The following video clip may give you a more panoramic view of La Paz:

La Paz has an extensive cable car network, called Teleferica, as part of the city's public transportation system. The Teleferica Network has a total of 11 lines which were all color-coded. Carlos took us to the Green Line and we experienced riding the cable car over the city.

Carlos also took us to Gold Museum briefly.

We made a stop at an art gallery of Mamani Mamani. We met him on the way down the street and Carlos made us an introduction. Apparently, he is a famous artist who traveled not only to the U.S. but also to Korea. He visited Busan and experienced some Korean food. His primary theme was mountains and women. Our friends bought some paintings of his and he signed the paintings.

Our one-day city tour was short and sweet. We had our dinner at the hotel and went back to our room for an early departure to the airport to fly to Sucre. - Jeffrey