Publié: 23.09.2018
La Paz is located in the Altiplano highlands at an altitude of 3200 - 4100 m and is home to the seat of government, but it is not the capital of Bolivia. The city is huge with a lot of traffic chaos and pollution. You can see the Illimani mountain with its 4 snow-covered peaks (6400m) from almost everywhere. Due to its location and numerous underground rivers, several cable cars were built across the city in recent years instead of a subway network.
My hostel is located in the city center. From here, I took a very interesting walking tour as well as a guided tour with the different cable cars around the city. There, I could admire the San Francisco Church, the witches' market in the center, the actual witches' market in El Alto, the Presidential Palace, and a large part of the city from above.
In La Paz, there is the San Pedro Prison. The prison is actually designed for 600 inmates, but there are currently about 3000 people living there. The reason for this is that the prison is a society of its own, and the families of the inmates also live there. Some inmates do not leave the prison even though they have already served their sentences. There is even a prison hotel, and tourists can take a tour of the prison by bribing the guards and at the end they receive a small bag of cocaine. However, there have been cases where tourists were not allowed to leave for several days. That's why I only looked at the prison from the outside...