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La Paz Travel Guide
In La Paz, Bolivia's capital and the highest city on earth, Bolivian teenagers, factory workers, young mothers and middle-aged bank executives band together as they rabidly cheer on their favorite football team as it scores a goal against a rival from the canyon city. Here, football games are as beloved as ancient ruins. As they get past local bars and industrial compounds in their team colors, they lend a colorful atmosphere to an already festive place.
Long before the biggest football teams have made this major cultural center a haven of sports enthusiasts, the Incas of Peru first settled here to make this city distinctly their own. Nowadays, no one would name a city after pop corn, but thousands of years ago, the Incas did just that by baptizing the town "Laja," a common crop of "puffed" corn. After the Incas "puffed" out of sight, they left behind an important archaeological gem, the Tiahuanacu ruins, considered thousands of years older than Macchu Picchu. The Inca experience however is not all about archaeological finds. A sip of the ancient tribe's sacred drink, Chicha (fermented corn), should prepare the palette to Bolivia's thriving street food culture.
Centuries after the Incas have settled, the Spanish found their way to La Paz following Choqueapu River's silver and gold trail and in 1548, conquistador Alonso de Mendoza formally founded the city over the ancient village of the Andes-Antiplano tribe, Aymara. He named it Nuestra Senora de La Paz (Our Lady of Peace) to commemorate Peru's "pacification." Not happy with the gold mines, the Spanish seized the Aymaras' freedom and women, resulting in a present concoction of white and mixed populace.
Today, Spain is one of La Paz's rivals in soccer, but the country's legacy is etched in the city's landmarks like Cathedral of San Francisco (where the patron saint is buried), the Metropolitan Cathedral (home of Sucre's remains), Copacabana (with its miraculous Virgen de Copacabana), and Calle Jae, an area that houses 10 museums.
A good way to take home a piece of La Paz is through the odd Witches' Market, which sells a sundry of things: from the mundane Bolivian soccer T-shirt to rare aphrodisiacs, llama fetuses and dried frogs.
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