Bolivia High Lives

Santa Cruz

Your overnight flight from Europe arrives either early or late morning into Santa Cruz, a brash cosmopolitan city in tropical lowlands just below Bolivia's Central Valleys. You are met at the airport and have the option of either being driven straight to your hotel or taken for a short tour of the leafy colonial centre of an otherwise commerical city. The rest of the day is free at your hotel.

Sucre

A short morning flight to the beautiful city of Sucre in the foothills of the Andes. A Unesco World Heritage site since 1991, its architecture is a unique blending of European and vernacular styles; it is also the constitutional capital of Bolivia. In the afternoon your local guide takes you to well-appointed Recoleta Mirador to experience the best views of Bolivia's prettiest city. You can then explore the Casa de la Libertad, where Bolivia’s independence was signed, and the two well-preserved colonial churches of San Lazaro and San Felipe Neri. A real highlight is the excellent ASUR indigenous art museum showcasing Bolivia’s highly-prized traditional dyed and woven textiles. You also visit the Metropolitan Cathedral, the Museum of the Merced, the patio of the University of San Francisco Xavier, and the Parque Bolivar.

Tarabuco

After breakfast you set off for the hour and a half drive to the thriving traditional Andean village of Tarabuco. Try to time your holiday for a visit here on a Sunday to experience its vibrant market specialising in high quality textiles made by the Yampura community. Return to Sucre in the afternoon.

Potosí

Today you leave early to ascend by car on good roads up to Potosí in the eastern sierra at 4050m. Potosí sits at the foot of 'Sumaj Orko', the mountain of silver whose mined riches sustained the Spanish Empire until the mid-17th Century. During those times a polarised society operated here: the Potosí elite flourished while its workers endured appalling conditions. You see key sites from that period and learn their history. Visits to the Museum of Santa Teresa and the Tower of the Company of Jesus are also scheduled.

Vast quantities of silver were extracted from the mountain. Some was minted into the nation’s currency at Potosí’s Casa de la Moneda, which you visit today. The silver mining industry continues here to this day and your guide takes you to the miners’ market to see it for yourself. Conditions for the miners are far from acceptable even now. You could also visit a working mine, but this is controversial and you may prefer not to engage with the miners’ hardships in this way.

Uyuni Salt Flats

You start your day descending from the sierra to the high plains and world-famous salt flats of the Altiplano on a three hour drive. Your destination is a hotel made of salt outside the small town of Uyuni at 3,650m. Uyuni was founded as a railway junction to facilitate trade links between Bolivia, Argentina and Chile. It was Bolivia’s main gateway to the outside world and the engineering involved was a symbol of cutting edge progress at the end of the 19th Century. Progress was never sustained and the trains have been abandoned as silent witnesses to Bolivia’s mining heyday in a ‘train graveyward’. Now, after over 100 years, you can wander around, even board the remains of the carriages, as they slowly rust away. You stop to explore a photographer's/train enthusiast's dream en route to your lodgings.

Salt Flats by 4WD

The Salar de Uyuni is the largest set of salt flats in the world - a glittering landscape of pure whiteness beneath pure blue skies covering 4,000 square miles. Today you begin five days of visiting some of the world’s most breathtaking and inspiring landscapes, travelling by 4WD with your own driver/guide. Heading out from your hotel you make a brief stop at the small settlement of Colchani where locals bring salt to weigh and bag for sale. Next you you arrive at the salt flats where, depending on the season, you can see small pillars of loose excavated salt, piles of salt blocks used for building, dark water hole “eyes”, and usually in January and February the sky reflected across the entire vista. This is perhaps the most spectacular time to visit, although the options for driving on the salt flats will be more limited. In the dry season, (usually late March-late November) you will be driven across the salt flats to visit either Fish Island (Isla del Pescado) or Inca House Island ('Isla Incahuasi' in Quechua) where you will see giant cacti and can find birds and vizcachas (giant rabbit-like rodents) that inhabit them. Overnight back at your salt hotel.

Today you set out in your 4WD to Tunupa volcano on the northern shore of the Bolivian Salt Flats. It’s a fascinating trip, with short stops to visit the small Chantani museum, the Coquesa cave mummies preserved from Incan times, and the remains of a pucará fort constructed by pre-Incan nomads. You should reach the foot of Tunupa around lunch time for a picnic lunch. It’s a moderate walk up the volcano to reach the Chillima lookout point for its truly spellbinding views and there is often a wonderful sunset on the way back to your salt hotel outside Uyuni.

Through the Bolivian Desert

Today begins a three day journey to explore the magnificent Bolivian desert, including areas protected by the Eduardo Avaroa National Reserve. Leaving the salt flats behind, you travel across a dramatic highland area of desert bordered by spectacular volcanic mountains. Here and there a small stream or lagoon supports llamas and vicuñas and even small communities eking out a living in a totlally desolate world. You skirt around Volcano Ollague, Bolivia’s only active volcano, and travel deep into the area known as the Siloli Desert, a sparse landscape of desert, volcanoes, rock formations and coloured lakes. You pass the Blanca, Hedionda, Chiarcota and Ramaditas lagoons, which variously support three different types of flamingo: Andean and Chilean flamingos, and the very beautiful James flamingo. You stop to see photogenic Stone Tree rock, and arrive at the Desert Hotel in tiny Ojo de Perdiz for two nights.

An early start this morning to see the ‘morning sun’ geysers steaming in the cold air at 5,000m. As the day unfolds you head to the dramatic red Laguna Colorada and the shimmering Green Lagoon at the foot of Volcano Lincacabur and on to view the other side of the magnificent volcano crossing the border to San Pedro de Atacama in Chile. You drive on to the hot springs of Polques, the salt plains of Chalviri and into the ‘Valley of the Ladies of the Desert’, with stops at some high altitude lagoons, completing a wide loop to arrive back at the Desert Hotel.

Today you set out for the Valley of Rocks, where strange shapes have been carved into rock by the wind. You continue through majestic desert landscapes to the little town of San Cristobal, eventually re-joining the road that brings you back to Uyuni, where you stay at a hotel in the town.

La Paz

A morning flight of only about 50 minutes to La Paz where your local guide will meet you at the airport outside the city in El Alto. You are driven to the cable car stop at El Alto, where you and your guide will zoom slowly down to the centre of La Paz with spectacular views across the city against a backdrop of the Andean peaks of the Cordillera Real mountain range. Your luggage is taken by road to your hotel in the meantime. Exploring La Paz, your guide shows you the Church of San Francisco, the Witches’ Markets and Plaza Murillo with its Government palaces. The rest of the afternoon is free for you to explore more of La Paz, or take it easy at your hotel.

The Valley of the Moon & Palca Canyon

La Paz is surrounded by wonderful places to explore. Today your guide takes you through its outskirts down to the eerie landscapes of the Valley of the Moon and the Valley of the Souls, whose rocks are eroded into spires or organ pipes. At the small community of Palca you might take a short walk with the snowy peaks of Illimani in the background, and then you pass through small Aymara communities on a quaint road far from the noisy streets of La Paz. Return to your hotel in La Paz after a light picnic lunch.

Tiwanaku and Lake Titicaca

After breakfast your guide collects you for a drive of an hour and a half to the archaeological site of Tiwanaku, one of Latin America’s most significant pre-Columbian sites. The Tiwanaku culture developed 500 years before the rise of the Incas, and flourished for several centuries. The ceremonial site you will visit is one part of a larger citadel that is still yet to be properly explored. On the site you will see the Gateway of the Sun, the Pyramid of Akapana, the Temple of Kalasasaya and a semi-subterranean temple. The site's excellent museum contains important pieces and explains, with your guide’s help, the relationships between Tiwanaku and other cultures of that time, and their key importance to the Incas that followed. In the afternoon you arrive at Copacabana on the shores of Lake Titicaca’s intense blue waters, passing traditional Aymara villages along the way. You cross the Straits of Tiquina by boat and continue by road to visit the church of El Santuario de la Virgen Morena de Copacabana, before lunch by the lake shore. There are plenty of opportunities to see and buy local textiles and handicrafts. In the afternoon you visit the site of an Incan astronomical observatory, returning to stay at your hotel in Copacabana.

The Islands of the Sun

Today you have a full day's excursion by boat to explore Lake Titicaca's rock islands. These islands are home to a few small communities of Aymara and Quechua speaking people who cultivate the islands, graze sheep and make handicrafts. There is no motorised transport on the islands! The navigation over to the Sun island takes approx 90 minutes, you disembark at Yumani dock from where there’s an unavoidable climb of 200 stairs. Ascending them takes you past Incan agricultural terraces which follow the contours of the island and the Inca’s terraced garden to the “Fuente de la Eterna Juventud” a natural spring that is said to be the source of eternal youth. From here there is a 20-minute walk to visit the ruined Pilkokaina Palace of the Incas which offers commanding views down upon the blue green waters of the lake in the bay below. A short (25mins) boat trip takes you to the nearby Moon Island, where you are likely to be able to participate in a typical local Aymara lunch, called Apthapi. Traditionally this meal is eaten communally with all diners sat on the ground in two long rows either side of a great spread of local delicacies. The principal ingredients are local potatoes, of every shape, size and hue, large white boiled maize kernels, yucca, llama meat, locally caught fish, fresh or fried cheeses, tortillas and eggs. All are set off by the highly colourful picnic cloths creating a photographers delight [a box lunch will be supplied just in case you would prefer to feast on the Apthapi with your eyes only!]. After lunch you visit the 'Palace of the Virgins' or Iñaq Uyu Temple. The Inca chief was the only male allowed to enter the Temple on Moon Island. Here daughters of noble Inca families were sent to live in seclusion where they made fine clothing and textiles for use by those in high society. These nustas, princesses of royal blood, were considered secondary wives of the Inca and a suitably precious commodity to make ideal offerings to the gods whenever an important sacrifice was required. Upon your return to Copacabana in the late afternoon you can visit the town’s beautiful cathedral, usually shining in the altitude’s bright sunlight. Transfer to La Paz (approximately 4 hour journey).

This morning you are collected from your hotel and transferred to La Paz’s international airport for your flight home or onwards.