I was excited and anxious at the same time to go back to La Paz – a city I loved so much when visiting Bolivia first in 2012. When going back to places, you never know how they developed, or if this time you are just not going to have such a good time… I was more excited than anxious though. Reallyyyy excited!!! When we landed in La Paz from Santiago, we were tired from a night of almost no sleep and stepped out of the airport right into the pouring rain! Not the best start. Weather remained tricky during our stay in La Paz, with the rainy season having started too early according to locals. We made the best out of it and spent the dry periods wandering around town, exploring the various markets, taking pictures of local ladies in their colourful outfits and (me) remembering all kind of random spots in the city. Good times!

Something I thought I did back then was visit the Mirador Kili Kili – however, turns out Andrea and I gave up too early back then and didn’t make it all the way up to the highest viewpoint. From there, you had amazing views over La Paz, even if the weather was not at its best. Must be awesome with blue skys and the snow-capped mountains in the background!

About half a day of our time was dedicated to „cable car-hopping“. Yes, you read correctly! When I visited in 2012, there were no cable cars in La Paz, but since then there are 8 different lines stretching in all directions of the city. We started with the orange line, and realized at the cable car station that we could easily do kind of a loop, seeing many parts of the city from up high this way. Thought and done! At only 3 Bs per ride, it is really not an expensive way to get around – and a really cool one too! The cable cars are brand new, built by the Austrian company Doppelmayer (for all those with trust issues in Bolivian-built stuff, this is Austrian quality we are talking about!). Every line was different – some went really in between the houses, close to the ground (can’t imagine house owners having been too happy about the decision to build the lines directly above their terraces…), some steeply up the hills to El Alto or other areas. Sometimes we got off in between, sometimes only in the end. The best views were mostly directly out of the cable cars.

One day, Mathijs went to go mountain biking on the Death Road, while I stayed in La Paz since I had already done this in 2012. He was lucky, for on that day the weather was dry and sunny and had an amazing time at the tour – with some great views that not even I had back then (it was one of the few rainy/snowy days I experienced in Bolivia back then).

I stayed in La Paz that day, walking through the streets and enjoying the city. I love this place too much!! For me, it is one of the best cities in the world… I had to get some shopping done (warmer clothes etc), but also found time to visit San Francisco church with a tour. A cute young girl led me around and explained a lot about the church. I actually only went on this tour to be able to access the roof, but it was worth it also for the rest. Turned out the girl was pretty good at taking pictures too, so I got an odd amount of pictures of myself on that day!

Another day in La Paz was spent with a day trip to Valle de las Animas just outside the city. This is a really cool spot that not so many people know about yet. It’s similar to Valle de la Luna but much cooler and bigger. Since I had already seen the latter during my last visit, I was keen to explore new grounds and we quickly found a bus heading in the right direction…only to get stuck in traffic! On the way back we took the cable car from Zona Sur and walked a short walk back into the city center – much better option! Anyways, even though we were once again unlucky with the weather (it started raining right when we got off the bus), we embarked on the 3 h half-circular viewpoint hike – and it was sooo worth it!! Even with the occasional rain shower in between and grey clouds instead of sunshine, the views were just amazing and Valle de las Animas looks out of this world. A truly magical place!! In sunny weather, I’m sure you could easily spend a day here, discovering some more treks… Like this though, it was not the most comfortable hike and we didn’t take too long to finish it. We appreciated the dry periods in between for many photos, and were lucky to find a dry lunch spot. In better weather, we might have added the hike inside the canyon, which looks also pretty cool. Maybe next time…

On our last day in La Paz, it was Thursday and therefore market day in El Alto. A huge market, that we wanted to see and experience! There is a lot of talk about El Alto not being that safe and how there are many pickpockets operating at the market. Well, we just really watched out, carried our backpack in front rather than on the back, locked it and were generally very aware of our surroundings, avoiding getting in pushy crowds too much etc. Even though we did keep our eyes open the whole time (more because of stories we had heard), I didn’t feel unsafe at all. Also, I don’t think anything else than pickpocketing could happen when there are so many people around…so as long as your pockets are empty and you had your backpack in the front + locked + raincover over it…what could happen!? Walking around the market was fun, and the views over La Paz were great as usual! Definitely recommended.

We then left La Paz earlier than we had wanted originally, because of the weather… We had wanted to do some more hiking, but the rain (and snow, higher up) was not on our side. Too bad, seems like at one point in my life I will have to return to Bolivia a third time!