40 Fun Facts About La Paz

Commuters in La Paz glide over the traffic on the world's largest urban network of what?

Cable cars arrived in 2014 under the name Mi Teleférico, linking La Paz with El Alto on the plateau above, and every station has both a Spanish and an Aymara name.

La Paz puts young people on its streets dressed as which animals to teach road rules to drivers?

Zebras in full costume dance through the streets of La Paz to make drivers and pedestrians aware of traffic rules, turning road safety into street theatre.

The Witches' Market in La Paz is famous for selling the dried fetuses of which animal as offerings to Pachamama?

Llama fetuses top a bundle of herbs and sweets that is burned for Pachamama, the earth mother; one popular ceremony asks her to keep the builders of a new home safe.

San Pedro in La Paz, where residents buy their own rooms and tourists once took tours, is what kind of place?

A prison in name, San Pedro runs like a walled town: inmates buy or rent their cells, hold jobs inside and often live with their families.

Which grim nickname did the cliff-edge route from La Paz to the Yungas valleys earn for its crash record?

Death Road once claimed 200 to 300 lives a year; a modern highway now carries the traffic, and about 25,000 tourists a year visit the old route, many of them on mountain bikes.

In El Alto, above La Paz, indigenous women known as cholitas perform which sport in layered skirts?

Wrestling shows by the Fighting Cholitas fill an El Alto arena every Sunday; the act began as a publicity idea from the wrestler who ran the troupe.

In 2014 the clock on Bolivia's congress building in La Paz was altered to do what unusual thing?

Run backwards is what it now does: the hands turn left and the numerals are reversed, a change the foreign minister dubbed the clock of the south.

Which soccer legend was coaching Argentina when Bolivia beat them 6–1 in the thin air of La Paz in 2009?

Diego Maradona had spoken out two years earlier against a ban on internationals in La Paz; the 6–1 loss equalled Argentina's worst-ever margin of defeat.

La Paz is the world's highest seat of government, but which city remains Bolivia's constitutional capital?

Sucre kept the title and the top courts after a civil war at the end of the 1800s, while the president and congress settled in La Paz.

Chacaltaya near La Paz had the world's highest lift-served ski area until what vanished by 2009?

Its glacier, up to 18,000 years old, melted away completely by 2009, six years earlier than scientists had predicted.

Which snow-capped mountain towers over La Paz and is revered in Andean tradition as the city's guardian?

Illimani is the highest peak of the Cordillera Real and the second-highest in Bolivia, and its snowy summits can be seen from much of the city.

What does El Alto International Airport, serving La Paz, supply to arriving passengers who feel unwell?

Oxygen is on hand because the airport sits at about 4,060 metres, the highest international airport in the world, where even big jets cannot take off fully loaded.

Which independence leader, hanged by the Spanish in 1810, gives his name to the main government square of La Paz?

Pedro Murillo led the La Paz uprising of 16 July 1809, one of the first open revolts against Spain in South America, and was executed in the very plaza that now bears his name.

Which Aymara rebel leader besieged Spanish-held La Paz for months in 1781 with an army of some 40,000?

Túpac Katari ran the siege from El Alto with his wife Bartolina Sisa, a commander in her own right; both were captured and executed after it was broken.

Rebels gave the old presidential palace in La Paz its lasting nickname in 1875 by doing what to the building?

Setting it on fire, after failing to storm it, left the building almost in ruins; it has been known as the Palacio Quemado, the Burnt Palace, ever since.

What is unusual about the houses, cars and banknotes that shoppers buy at the Alasitas fair in La Paz?

They are miniatures, bought and blessed in the hope that the full-size wish comes true; UNESCO added the fair's ritual journeys to its heritage list in 2017.

The main bus terminal of La Paz, built as a railway station in the 1910s, is credited to which French engineer?

Gustave Eiffel is credited with the design; its metal frame was shipped from Pittsburgh, and the hall served trains and then customs before becoming a bus station in 1980.

Which astronaut is said to have given the eroded Valle de la Luna near La Paz its name?

Neil Armstrong is credited in local tradition with comparing its clay spires to the Moon, though the story is undocumented; the shapes come from the erosion of soft clay and sandstone.

Unlike most hillside cities, where in the steep canyon of La Paz do the wealthiest residents tend to live?

At the bottom the climate is milder: the affluent Zona Sur lies several hundred metres below the centre, while poorer districts climb the surrounding hills.

Each November, families in La Paz carry which human remains to the General Cemetery to be honoured with gifts?

Skulls known as ñatitas are kept in home shrines as protectors, then honoured on 8 November with music, flower petals, cigarettes and alcohol.

Which metal's mining boom near Oruro helped pull Bolivia's seat of government to La Paz around 1898?

Tin overtook the country's worn-out silver mines as the main source of wealth, shifting money and political power toward La Paz.

Which style of hat, worn undersized and balanced on top of the head, is a trademark of La Paz's cholitas?

Bowler hats in La Paz are deliberately small, and by tradition the angle says whether the wearer is married or single: straight for married, tilted for single.

Which baked pastry, a mid-morning tradition in La Paz, hides a stew that is solid when filled and melts in the oven?

Salteña fillings are set with gelatin so they go in solid and turn to hot juice as they bake; vendors start early and most sell out by mid-morning.

Which Bolivian beer takes its name from the Spanish word for a person or thing from La Paz?

Paceña comes from a La Paz brewery whose roots go back to 1877, and the name stuck as the beer spread from the city to the rest of the country.

Which 1988 film tells the story of La Paz-born math teacher Jaime Escalante and his Los Angeles calculus class?

Stand and Deliver cast Edward James Olmos as Escalante, who had taught math and physics in Bolivia for 12 years before moving to the United States.

Which vast lake northwest of La Paz, shared with Peru, is often called the highest navigable lake in the world?

Lake Titicaca lies about 3,800 metres above sea level; its eastern side falls within the department of La Paz, and the western part belongs to Peru's Puno region.

The name La Paz marks the peace that followed a rebellion against Peru's first viceroy led by which conquistador?

Gonzalo Pizarro, half-brother of the conqueror of the Incas, rose against the first viceroy of Peru; after his defeat in 1548 the new city was named Nuestra Señora de La Paz, Our Lady of Peace.

Which La Paz festival, held around Trinity Sunday, sends some 40,000 dancing devotees parading through the streets?

Gran Poder brings together dozens of dance fraternities and thousands of musicians, opening with the Morenos, its signature dance; UNESCO listed it as intangible heritage in 2019.

Which governing body ruled in 2007 that the Hernando Siles stadium in La Paz was too high for World Cup qualifiers?

FIFA set a limit of 2,500 metres, gave the stadium an exemption a month later after protests from Bolivia's president among others, and scrapped the rule entirely in 2008.

Which plant's leaves are brewed into the tea offered to new arrivals in La Paz to ease altitude sickness?

Coca tea, known as mate de coca, is the customary welcome for visitors feeling the height, though its effect on the sickness has never been systematically studied.

Which La Paz soccer club, founded in 1908 under an English name, is the oldest active team in Bolivia?

The Strongest is the only Bolivian side to have played in the top division for more than a century without a break, a run that survived an air crash that killed almost all of its players.

The first San Francisco church in La Paz, finished in 1581, collapsed a few decades later under what?

A heavy snowfall brought down the original between 1608 and 1612; the present basilica, begun in the 1740s, is a showpiece of the Andean Baroque style.

What are the cholets of El Alto, the city beside La Paz, made famous by Freddy Mamani?

Lavish mansions with dancehalls inside, cholets take their name from cholo and chalet; architect Freddy Mamani's bright facades borrow lines from ancient ruins and colours from Aymara weaving.

La Paz fills a canyon carved by which river, now mostly built over and traced by the main avenue?

Choqueyapu waters rise in the mountains near Chacaltaya, cross the city from north to south and eventually join the Beni on their way to the Amazon.

Which Spanish captain founded La Paz in 1548 on the orders of the royal envoy Pedro de la Gasca?

Alonso de Mendoza first chose the settlement of Laja, then moved the new town within days to the more sheltered valley where the city lies today.

La Paz was formally renamed in 1825 to include the name of which decisive battle against Spain?

Ayacucho, fought in 1824, secured Peru's independence and ensured it for the rest of Spanish South America; the city's full name then became La Paz de Ayacucho.

Which soccer giant lost a World Cup qualifier for the first time ever at the Hernando Siles stadium in La Paz?

Brazil had gone 40 years of qualifying unbeaten before falling 2–0 in La Paz, a result that helped send Bolivia to the 1994 World Cup.

Much of the Yungas Road out of La Paz was built in the 1930s by Paraguayan prisoners from which war?

Chaco War captives cut much of the route into the cliffs, and unlike the rest of Bolivia its traffic keeps left so drivers can judge the distance to the edge.

Which ancient ruined city about 70 km from La Paz is a World Heritage Site known for its Gate of the Sun?

Tiwanaku was the capital of a powerful state that flourished centuries before the Inca Empire, and it is one of the largest archaeological sites in South America.

In 2018 Bolivia's president moved out of the old palace in La Paz and into what kind of new building next door?

A skyscraper called the Casa Grande del Pueblo went up despite height limits in the historic district; it has a helipad, and its top two floors were reserved for the president.