Bolivia

Near the southern shore of Lake Titicaca, Tiwanaku grew into a ceremonial city between about 500 and 1000 CE, with stone gateways, sunken courts and raised fields that fed tens of thousands. Its influence reached into Peru and Chile; its decline, probably linked to long drought, left Aymara kingdoms that the Inca later absorbed.

The Spanish arrived in the 1530s. In 1545 a mountain of silver was found at Potosí, and within decades the city at about 4,000 m was among the largest in the world. Indigenous men were forced to work the mines through the mit'a labour draft; many died underground or from mercury in the refineries.

Potosí's silver paid for Spain's wars and flowed to Asia through Manila. The phrase 'vale un Potosí', worth a Potosí, still means a fortune in Spanish. The Royal Mint (Casa de la Moneda) and dozens of baroque churches remain from those centuries.

Sucre, then called La Plata or Chuquisaca, was the seat of the Audiencia of Charcas and a university town. In 1809 it saw one of the first calls for independence in Spanish America.

Bolivia became independent in 1825 and took the name of Simón Bolívar. The new state held a Pacific coast, the Acre rubber lands and a large Chaco, and lost all of them over the next century.

Chile took the coast and its nitrate fields in the War of the Pacific (1879–84); Brazil took Acre in 1903; Paraguay won most of the Chaco in the war of 1932–35, in which tens of thousands of highland conscripts died of thirst and disease. The loss of the sea is still taught in schools, and 23 March is the Day of the Sea.

The Chaco defeat discredited the old tin-baron elite. The 1952 revolution nationalised the mines, gave land to Indigenous farmers and universal suffrage. Military coups followed from 1964, including the regimes of Hugo Banzer and the 'cocaine coup' of 1980, before democracy returned in 1982.

Hyperinflation in the mid-1980s ended with a harsh stabilisation plan, mine closures and a wave of migration from the mining towns to El Alto and the coca-growing Chapare.

Bolivia has about 12 million people and the largest share of Indigenous citizens in South America. Aymara speakers live around La Paz, El Alto and the lake; Quechua speakers in the valleys and the south; Guaraní and dozens of smaller nations in the eastern lowlands. The 2009 constitution recognises 36 languages.

Evo Morales, an Aymara coca-growers' leader, won the presidency in 2005 for the Movement for Socialism (MAS). His governments nationalised gas, expanded cash transfers, renamed the country the Plurinational State of Bolivia and put the wiphala flag beside the national one.

His attempt at a fourth term in 2019 ended in disputed elections, deadly protests and his resignation. MAS returned under Luis Arce in 2020, but falling gas output, dwindling dollar reserves and a party split led to its defeat. Rodrigo Paz won the 2025 run-off and took office on 8 November.

El Alto, above La Paz, is a young Aymara city of about a million people, with cholets (colourful Andean-style mansions), a huge Thursday and Sunday market and cholita wrestling. The pollera skirt and bowler hat of the chola paceña, once markers of exclusion, are now worn with pride.

Bolivian eating starts mid-morning with the salteña, a baked pastry full of hot, sweet-spicy stew that you eat standing up without spilling. Lunch is the main meal: a soup (often peanut, quinoa or chairo) followed by a plate of meat, rice and potatoes.

The Altiplano has preserved potatoes for millennia by freeze-drying them in the frost and sun into chuño and tunta. Lake Titicaca trout, introduced in the 20th century, is now a staple on the shore; the lowlands cook with cassava, rice and beef.

Every dish comes with llajwa, a fresh sauce of tomato, locoto chilli and the herb quirquiña, ground on a stone. Markets such as La Paz's Rodríguez and Lanza have food halls where lunch costs a few bolivianos.

Singani, a brandy of muscat grapes from Tarija's high valleys, is the national spirit; Tarija's vineyards, some above 2,000 m, are among the highest in the world.

The Altiplano is a high plateau between two Andean ranges, mostly above 3,600 m. Lakes once filled much of it; as they dried, they left Lake Titicaca and Lake Poopó in the north and the salt crusts of Uyuni and Coipasa in the south.

The Salar de Uyuni, about 10,500 km², is the largest salt flat on earth and so level that satellites use it to calibrate altimeters. After rain a thin film of water turns it into a mirror. Beneath the crust lies brine with one of the world's biggest lithium resources, which Bolivia has struggled to develop.

South of the Salar, the Eduardo Avaroa reserve holds coloured lagoons, flamingos, geysers and volcanoes near 6,000 m. The Andean flamingo, James's flamingo and vicuñas live here in thin air and nights far below freezing.

East of the Andes, the land drops through the Yungas cloud forest into Amazon rainforest and the Chaco dry forest. Madidi National Park spans from glaciers to lowland forest; clearing and fires for farming have made Bolivia one of the world's largest losers of primary forest.

The Paz government has reshaped the practical picture. From 1 December 2025 US, Israeli, South Korean, South African and other citizens no longer need visas. In June 2026 the boliviano, pegged at 6.96 to the dollar since 2011, was floated; the parallel 'blue' rate that had doubled prices for card users has largely disappeared.

The cost has been unrest. Fuel-subsidy cuts triggered more than 50 days of road blockades in 2026, food and fuel shortages, and a state of exception from June, extended in September. Overland travel can stop at short notice; flights and buffer days are the answer.

Altitude is constant: La Paz at about 3,600 m, El Alto at about 4,050 m, the Uyuni tour above 4,500 m. Starting in Sucre or Santa Cruz and climbing gradually avoids the worst of it.

Bolivia remains the cheapest country in South America to travel, and the one where cash, Spanish and patience count most.