Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
kerus
, painted and carved with human faces, one of which is clearly chewing coca. Also in-
teresting is a selection of drug paraphernalia from the Tiwanaku era, including long wooden
tubesusedforsnortingpowerfulhallucinogens.Notethatthemuseumwasundergoingrenov-
ations at the time of writing and opening times and/or the exhibits themselves may be subject
to change.
Zona Sur
From Plaza del Estudiante at the southern end of the Prado, Avenida Villazon heads southeast
through Sopochachi, turning into Avenida Arce and then winding down into the
Zona Sur
,
a fifteen-minute taxi ride away, where the suburbs of
Calacoto
,
San Miguel
and
Cota Cota
are home to a growing number of La Paz's wealthier residents, including politicians, senior
military officers and most of the foreign business and diplomatic community. Almost 500m
lower in altitude, the Zona Sur has a noticeably warmer climate, with luxury boutiques and
villas ringed by harsh badlands. If you're passing through on the way to the
Muela del Diablo
or the
Valle de la Luna
, it's worth stopping for a drink in one of the many cafés just to get an
impression of how the city's elite live.
El Alto
At the opposite extreme in every sense from the Zona Sur is
El Alto
, the huge urban sprawl
that has grown up over the last few decades around the airport, on the rim of the Altipla-
no overlooking La Paz. At over 4000m above sea level and some 5km from the city centre,
El Alto enjoys beautiful views along the length of the snow-capped Cordillera Real, and the
views of La Paz from the rim of the Altiplano are spectacular, even if they contrast sharply
with the physical ugliness of the city itself. Populated largely by Aymara migrants from the
surrounding Altiplano, when it was officially recognized as a separate municipality from La
Paz in 1986, El Alto instantly became the fourth biggest, poorest and fastest growing city in
Bolivia. With a bigger population than La Paz, and rapidly approaching one million (sixty
percent of whom are under 25 years old), the place resembles a vast, impoverished yet dy-
namic suburb, its endless stretches of tin-roofed adobe shacks and often half-finished red-
brickbuildingsbrokenonlybythestrangelyminaret-likespiresofchurchesandanincreasing
number of shops and businesses, industrial warehouses and endless lines of scruffy garages.
Much of the population has no access to running water or electricity, employment is scarce
and freezing night-time temperatures make it a desperately harsh place to live. Alteños nev-
ertheless take prideintheir urban-rural identity,their collective struggle against adversity and
the challenges of urban life in what they refer to as the biggest indigenous city in the Amer-
icas, and denigrate La Paz, where many of them work, as
la hoyada
- “the hole”.
