Bolivian archi*tech*ture. Who knew?!

Farewell Titicaca, and I hope we’ll meet again. Meanwhile, our January journey through Latin America was heading deeper into Bolivia. Destination – La Paz…

La Paz is Bolivia’s second-largest city (if we exclude suburbs) and also the de facto capital of the country – though de jure the capital is Sucre. Yes – there’s a bit of confusion here re the cities, but this post won’t be about Bolivia’s administrative divisions; it’s about something much more interesting (and unusual). For here in Bolivia there are some truly fascinating sights. But let’s take things step by step…

One of La Paz’s suburbs is the urban area of El Alto. If you look at a map, the size of this “suburb” actually surpasses that of La Paz itself, with its population having (probably) already exceeded a million. Given that El Alto is situated at an altitude of over 4000 meters, it’s the highest-altitude city with over a million inhabitants. From a plane, it doesn’t look particularly impressive. And if you take a closer look – yes, it’s quite obvious that the income level per capita here isn’t very high ->

Of course, one could focus more on the surrounding views of the city:

But if you pay attention to the buildings along the streets, you might notice something unusual:

Yikes – we were to pass through this suburb of La Paz. No – we weren’t looking forward to it… On the ground – as underwhelming as it looked from the plane:

But then, suddenly, the buildings along the roadside started appearing with completely unusual façades. A mix of something like techno-punk and cyber-surrealism. The style is consistent, but the designs vary. Quite extraordinary! ->

It turned out to be the work of local self-taught designer, Freddy Mamani. He started his career as a simple laborer – later turning his hand to creating these patterns. They became popular, and today more than a hundred buildings in this rather bleak-looking city (at least in my opinion) feature this format. The style’s even got its own name: Neo-Andean! We were told that the interiors of some of the buildings are just as vibrant and cyber-surrealistic. For about an hour we slowly made our way through El Alto’s traffic-jammed streets – but we didn’t mind: we just kept admiring the designer creations along the way ->

The trip was certainly scenic, but calling it comfortable would be a stretch.

A ski lift – it serves as public transport here, but more on that later…

They stuck the support post of the lift right on the sidewalk ->

Everyday life scene:

Moving on:

Hellish traffic jams…

But sometimes, the views on the horizon were just wow! ->

We descended into La Paz (from 4000 meters down to about 3600)…

We made it! We were set to spend two whole nights here in the same hotel (a rare occurrence on my trips), and then return to it again after our adventures in southern Bolivia – to wash and freshen up, catch our breath, pack, and set off on the long journey back home. But more on all that, logically, later )…

The best photos from our journey through Latin America are here.