La Paz

The currency is the boliviano (Bs). After almost twenty years with the exchange rate pegged at Bs 6.96 to the dollar, Bolivia adopted a managed float in June 2026. In September 2026 the official dollar rate hovers around Bs 12, and the parallel rate has practically converged with it. With inflation projected above 25% a year, every price in bolivianos goes stale quickly. Think in dollars and confirm the amount on the spot, because a range noted one week may not hold the next. Ranges from September 2026: coffee or api Bs 8–15; almuerzo with soup, main course and a drink Bs 15–30 downtown and Bs 45–80 in the Zona Sur; dinner at a good restaurant Bs 90–180; beer Bs 15–25; cable car Bs 3; hostel Bs 70–120 and a mid-range hotel Bs 350–650 a night. Carry cash, because outside the malls of the Zona Sur many places don't take cards. ATMs still run out of bills on weekends and holidays. Exchange offices only take dollars in good condition, with your passport in hand. Tipping isn't mandatory: round up the bill or leave 10% at sit-down restaurants.

El Alto Airport, 10 km from downtown, with a 400 m descent

El Alto International Airport (LPB) sits at 4,061 m, about 10 km from downtown, and is one of the highest international airports in the world. The drop of about 400 m down to the city already works in favor of acclimatization. The official taxi from the arrivals hall to downtown costs around Bs 70–120 and takes 30–45 minutes; the minibus on the same route costs a few bolivianos. There's no Uber. inDrive and Yango work, and a radio taxi called by phone or app is the safest option, especially after dark. On the first day, don't haul your luggage uphill: at 4,000 m, without acclimatization, the effort knocks out healthy, fit people.

Mi Teleférico, ten color-coded lines across the city

Mi Teleférico is the backbone of the system: ten color-coded lines, about 33 km in all, generally running from 6am to 10pm or 11pm depending on the line. In 2026 the fare is Bs 3 for the first line and Bs 2 per transfer; you buy access at the ticket booth, by card or QR code. On the street, three different things circulate that look like one from a distance: white minibuses, with a conductor shouting the route out the window (Bs 2–3), old micros, and trufis, which are fixed-route taxis. The PumaKatari and Chikititi municipal buses charge a flat fare and stop only at marked stops. You can walk downtown, but slopes reach a 20% grade: go down on foot and come back up by cable car or minibus. At the downtown crosswalks, the “cebras” (young people dressed as zebras, a municipal program since 2001) direct the crossing, and drivers tend to obey the costume rather than the traffic light.

The biggest risk in La Paz isn't crime, it's altitude: 3,640 m downtown and 4,061 m at the airport cause headaches, nausea, and insomnia, and the answer is to climb slowly, drink water, avoid alcohol in the first 48 hours, and see a pharmacy if symptoms don't ease. On crime, theft predominates: wallets and phones in crowded minibuses, at the 16 de Julio fair, and around the Mercado Rodríguez. Two scams are classic and have repeated for decades. The first is the plainclothes fake police officer who asks to “check” your passport and money, sometimes with an accomplice posing as a tourist: refuse, keep walking, and demand to go to a real police station. The second is the unregistered taxi that turns into an express kidnapping to an ATM, avoided by calling a car ahead of time and checking the driver's ID. At night, avoid the area around the Cementerio General, around the Central Station, and walking alone through El Alto. Demonstrations and road blockades are political routine in La Paz and close major roads without warning, with protests over fuel and prices growing more frequent. Check the local press on the day and head to the airport with a wide margin of time.

Greet before asking

“Buenos días” or “buenas tardes” comes before any question, including the price one. Asking straight off sounds like an order.

Call the seller casera

At the market, “casera” (or “casero”) is the correct form of address and opens the negotiation. “Señora” works; using “cholita” with someone you don't know doesn't.

Ask permission before photographing

Ask before photographing women in pollera skirts, yatiris and stalls at the Mercado de las Brujas. Many charge a few bolivianos for a photo, and others simply refuse.

Don't refuse coca outright

Coca leaf and coca tea are legal, everyday, and offered both as hospitality and as a remedy for altitude. Accepting a handful, even without chewing it, is a courteous gesture.

Pour out the first sip

At toasts, openings and family lunches, pour a little on the ground for the Pachamama before drinking: that's the ch’alla. Nobody explains the gesture, so do what the others at the table do.

Bargain lightly and without drama

At markets and fairs, a discount of about 10% is normal; at a shop with price tags, you don't haggle. Insisting after the second “no” ends the conversation.

Walking and eating heavy on arrival

Getting off the plane and going straight to walk, eat heavy, or drink. The first 24 hours call for rest, water, and light food: soroche knocks people down regardless of age or fitness, and it has knocked down marathon runners too.

Six blocks can mean 100 m of elevation

Assuming downtown is flat. Six blocks on the map can mean 100 m of elevation change, so check the grade before deciding to walk, and always prefer the downhill direction.

The stall won't break a Bs 100 bill

Counting on cards and ATMs. A good part of commerce runs on cash only, and street stalls rarely have change for a Bs 100 bill.

Salteña in the afternoon

Looking for salteñas in the afternoon or fricasé after 11am on Sunday. Each dish has a fixed time in the city and simply runs out once that time passes, with no sign or warning.

Hailing a street taxi without calling ahead

Hailing a taxi on the street without calling ahead, especially after dark. It's the entry point for the express kidnapping, the city's most recurring scam.

¿Cuánto está, casera?

“How much is it?”: the standard way to ask for a price at the market

Kamisaraki: Waliki

“How are you?” and “I'm well,” in Aymara (ka-mi-sa-RA-ki / wa-LI-ki)

Jikisiñkama

“See you later,” in Aymara (rri-ki-si-NYA-ka-ma)

¿Hay llajua?

“Is there llajua?” (LYA-rrua). The locoto sauce that goes with almost everything

Estoy con soroche

“I have altitude sickness”: a phrase any pharmacist understands right away

¡Esquina, por favor!

“Corner, please!”: what you shout to get off the minibus

The canyon and the three altitudes

La Paz has no plain: the whole city is the wall of a canyon about 20 km long that the Choqueyapu River carved into the altiplano, with a drop of nearly 1,000 m between the rim and the bottom. The administrative center sits around 3,640 m; the Zona Sur drops to 3,200 m; El Alto, on the western rim, sits at 4,050–4,100 m.

Inverted social geography and unstable soil

The social geography is inverted compared to most cities in the world: the lower you go, the warmer, more oxygen-rich, and more expensive it gets, and the poorer neighborhoods climb the slopes. The river was channeled beneath the main avenue, Mariscal Santa Cruz, the Prado, and barely shows above ground. The soil is clayey and unstable: the Callapa megalandslide, on February 26, 2011, destroyed about a thousand houses, and the hailstorm of February 19, 2002, flooded downtown and killed dozens of people.

Vertical growth and Illimani as a compass

With no room to grow outward, the city climbed the slopes and, since 2014, has had the cable car, which works as a vertical metro between the valley floor and the rim. To the southeast, Illimani, at 6,438 m, appears from almost every lookout and serves as a landmark for getting your bearings.

The chola paceña and Aymara identity

La Paz is a majority-Aymara city that spent much of the 20th century presenting itself as something else. The shift shows on the street: the chola paceña (pollera skirt, embroidered shawl, bowler hat adopted in the 1920s) is no longer a mark of subordination but a public identity, with fashion shows, TV presenters and the Cholitas Luchadoras, who have wrestled in El Alto on Sundays since the early 2000s. Freddy Mamani's neo-Andean architecture and an Aymara bourgeoisie that pays for festivals, bands and entire buildings point in the same direction.

Folk-parade bands, film and literature

The city produces brass band music that carries the folkloric entradas (morenada, caporales, diablada) and, alongside it, a scene of rock, Aymara rap, and cumbia centered in Sopocachi. In film, Jorge Sanjinés and the Ukamau group reinvented Andean political cinema with “Yawar Mallku” (1969) and “La nación clandestina” (1989); Antonio Eguino portrayed four classes and four altitudes of the city in “Chuquiago” (1977), and Juan Carlos Valdivia filmed the Zona Sur elite in “Zona Sur” (2009). In literature, Jaime Saenz wrote the paceño canon in “Felipe Delgado” and “Aniversario de una visión,” and Juan de Recacoechea turned downtown into a crime novel in “American Visa” (1994).

Soccer at 3,637 meters, Mass and ch’alla

Soccer is played at 3,637 m in Hernando Siles stadium, an altitude advantage FIFA tried to ban in 2007 before backing down, and Bolívar and The Strongest split the city. Outside the stadium, faith also has two faces: the same family goes to Mass at the cathedral and does the ch’alla, pouring the first sip on the ground for the Pachamama, before christening a car, house or shop, often on the same day.

“Chuquiago” (1977), by Antonio Eguino

“Chuquiago” (1977) and “Zona Sur” (2009): two decades, two readings of the same social ladder.

“American Visa” (1994), by Juan de Recacoechea

A crime novel set in the cheap hotels and streets of downtown, about a teacher trying to get a visa to the United States. It explains the city through the underside of its bureaucracy.

“La nación clandestina” (1989), by Jorge Sanjinés

A man expelled from his community returns to the altiplano to dance his own death. A key film for understanding the relationship between La Paz and the Aymara world around it.