After not knowing exactly whether we should enter Bolivia or not, we obviously decided in favor of Bolivia. A new country, new adventures, La Paz as the city with the highest seat of government in the world awaits us. We take a small border crossing from Lake Titicaca and see the Bolivian side of the lake before heading straight to La Paz.

El Alto – today an independent city within the city

Our accommodation for the next few days is in El Alto. Originally a district of La Paz, El Alto is now a city in its own right. For us, however, it is still part of La Paz. It is particularly convenient for us that we don’t have to drive right into the center of La Paz and can park Ben in a secure parking lot. There is a cable car station not far away. On the main traffic routes La Paz is perfectly connected by cable cars. This makes it extremely easy for us to explore the city, comparable to a well-organized subway system in other cities. The center itself is located about 400m below El Alto at an altitude of 3,600m. We gondola over steep slopes from La Paz to the center and finally see the city center on foot.

Fun fact: El Alto lies at over 4,000 meters above sea level and as El Alto is generally regarded as part of La Paz, La Paz is therefore the unofficial highest capital in the world! Unofficially, because Sucre is actually the capital of Bolivia, but all the important government buildings, such as the court, the state government, etc. are located in La Paz and not in Sucre.

Witches’ market in La Paz

In La Paz there is a small market known as the witches’ market. Here you can buy many unusual objects for holding pagan ceremonies. For us, the dried llama fetuses, somewhat mummified by the weather, are particularly disconcerting. Apparently, some of the baby llamas from the large herds die naturally. These are then collected and sold on the witches’ market for certain rituals, such as the blessing of a new house. A little less strange are the many incense products that provide different scents or accessories such as charcoal and firewood. In the meantime, we have also become accustomed to the fact that coca leaves and high-proof alcohol are sold everywhere. Everything that is essential for a successful ritual. During our visit to the witches’ market, however, there is not much going on, as we accidentally visit the witches’ market on Bolivia’s national holiday. Doesn’t matter so much to us, we got an impression of the witches’ market. A small side note: as we see more of Bolivia than just one or two towns, we soon see the same dead baby llamas for sale by the roadside at other stores. So, it is not the case that there is only one so-called witches’ market in La Paz. Rather, this is the place that is known for tourists to see these kinds of stores – but they are common throughout the country, especially in the high regions above 3,000m.

Largest open-air market in El Alto

Two days a week – Thursdays and Sundays – a huge part of El Alto is transformed into a gigantic open-air market. And gigantic means gigantic: the market stretches several kilometers in length and many blocks in width over an unimaginably large area. The entire Bolivian product range can be bought at this market. Fruit and vegetables play a subordinate role in this market, although several streets are also filled with them. From the smallest electronic component to an entire car: everything can be found here. Not a technical product? – No problem: toothbrushes, hairbrushes, brooms or adhesive tape, it’s all here. Need something more aesthetic? Mini skirts, ponchos, leather jackets, jeans and suits – in all sizes, colors and styles are available at this market. Clouds of words certainly don’t do justice to the huge range on offer – but we think they get the idea across to some extent.
We’re used to open-air markets by now, but on this scale – that was another first for us.

Aiming high – Paddy cracks the 6,000m mark

La Paz is also very suitable for various high-altitude tours in the surrounding mountains. Paddy is already interested in a tour over 6,000m in advance – after all, it’s not possible to reach that height in Europe – here in the Andes, 6,000m high mountains have been with us for some time. Therefore, the attraction was always there, and in La Paz, the Huayna Potosí is a relatively easy 6,000m high mountain. A quick briefing and off we go. Two overnight stays and three days of mountaineering enable the ascent from La Paz via two mountain huts to 6,088m above sea level.

On the first day, participants are taught mountaineering techniques using ice axes and crampons. The Huayna Potosí is snow-covered and icy all year round, making crampons indispensable. The group spends the first night in a very comfortable mountain hut at 4,800m. The time apart from the introduction is used for energy production and further acclimatization. This means we don’t do much, sit around and tell each other travel stories and our expectations about the upcoming ascent to the high altitude. On the second day, the day starts at 08:00 but nothing happens before 12:30. Today we only plan to climb 400 meters and ascend to the high camp at 5,200m. There are no more cars here, everything has to be hauled up by hand or beast of burden – of which we see none. The bigger challenge is the heavy weight of the backpack with all the necessary equipment. At least 20 kg on our backs make the ascent at this altitude more strenuous than expected.

On the third day, we set off in the middle of the night at 01:30 in order to reach the summit of Huayna Potosí in time for sunrise at 06:30. Our movements are extremely slow, almost trance-like, in order to conserve our strength as much as possible and to master the 5-hour climb to the summit. Each rope team places one foot behind the other only every second or so, slowly but steadily. On this morning, around 70 tourists and their mountain guides make their way to the summit. The fact that the summit is reasonably easy to climb for such a high altitude means that on average 70% of the participants make it.
The ease of climbing Huayna Potosí is of course relative. Technically, it is, but mentally for beginners like Paddy and the other participants, the level of difficulty is somewhat higher. In complete darkness, in the light of the many headlamps, we cross crevasses and steep, completely icy slopes. The trail is only 3.1 km long and 888 meters high. But 5 hours is not too much time. Far away, the sea of lights of La Paz shines into the night. We don’t even recognize the summit through the darkness – we just keep following our mountain guide. Short breaks and long queues behind larger and therefore even slower groups make body temperature management not so easy. Sometimes it gets really cold due to the brisk wind at some places.
In the end, it’s more of a mental challenge than a physical one. About 150 meters below the summit after about 3.5 hours of hiking, it would have been nice to reach the summit. But it wasn’t there yet. Bite through and keep hiking, everything else doesn’t help. Shortly before the end, things get more interesting again: The ice and snow have melted here, and we are hiking with crampons on bare stones through a rock face. I don’t think this is ideal, but it’s probably too exposed to take off the crampons. The last ridge before the summit is also a challenge for novice mountaineers: A narrow ridge of snow and ice, and the mountain drops steeply for several hundred meters on both sides. This is the last challenge before we reach the summit of Huayna Potosí a few minutes before sunrise. Our mountain guide Abraham led Paddy and Zuka, a Brazilian tourist, to the summit with perfect timing!

The view is wonderful, and logically 360° thanks to the high altitude. We can see La Paz in the distance, Lake Titicaca and a breathtaking landscape with mountain lakes bathed in golden sunlight at sunrise. We only stay on the summit for a short time, as there are many more groups following us and we don’t want to get too cold. After all, we still have the descent ahead of us. The ascent took us 5 hours and 19 minutes. We then managed the same route back down to the high camp in under 2 and a half hours. A quick rest, warm up and eat something. After that we had to walk back to base camp at 4,800m with all our high alpine equipment. After this tour we realize what our bodies had to do, a little weak and sometimes with some pain, as the agency’s hard-shell mountain boots in particular were not very well-fitting, we all return happily to the starting point of the tour. We have made it! Standing at over 6,000m, or more precisely 6,088m above sea level, under our own steam for once in our lives – unique! The joy is huge, and surprisingly this time 90% of all participants successfully made the ascent.

Diesel situation in Bolivia

Getting diesel in Bolivia has always been difficult for tourists. Firstly, only trucks, public buses and state vehicles run on diesel (private vehicles run on petrol or, to a surprisingly large extent, natural gas) and secondly, not all petrol stations are authorized to sell to foreigners. In addition, all foreigners pay the international price for diesel, which is about 2.5 times as much as locals pay.
Since the beginning of July 2024, however, diesel imports have collapsed (the reasons for this are numerous, but mainly due to high debt levels in neighboring countries). Petrol stations now only receive diesel deliveries infrequently and irregularly, which leads to long queues of trucks in front of petrol stations. The queues are several kilometers long, we usually count well over 50 trucks, and the drivers queue for days and nights! If, for once, there is no queue in front of a filling station, they have no diesel. Because of this situation, many of the petrol stations that are actually allowed to sell to tourists are now refusing to do so.
We only have to refuel once, or to be on the save side twice, on our way across Bolivia, thanks to our extra canisters of diesel from Peru and a very clear itinerary with no major detours. We are lucky, we “only” queue for 18 hours. What’s more, the queue doesn’t move a meter for the first 15 hours as we’re waiting for a new tanker, and we queue overnight. This means we can sleep in the back of our own bed and have a hearty breakfast the next morning before we actually continue. Most truck drivers don’t have this luxury and spend hours, if not days, in their driver’s seats. Besides, this action is simply annoying for us, but we have no time pressure – for the truck drivers, whole days are lost without work and therefore without pay!

After the sense of achievement for Paddy and the slightly longer time in La Paz for Mimi, we are now both ready to explore more of Bolivia’s sights. For a change on this trip, the next stages are not heading south, but east. We will soon be reporting on the next stages of our journey here on our CompassChronicle blog.