Horrendous congestion and belching-black pollution notwithstanding, most visitors find La Paz’s compelling street life and tremendous cultural energy warrant spending at least a few days here, even if conventional tourist attractions are limited to a scattering of colonial palaces, plazas and churches in the centre of town. Though you’d imagine the exigencies of life at high altitude would make the pace of life quite slow, in reality it’s often more frantic than Buenos Aires or Rio, not least during the winter Fiesta del Gran Poder, when young and old alike dance in riotous celebration of the sacred and the profane. For them, working life in La Paz is conducted largely on the streets, and at times the whole place can feel like one massive, sprawling market. The Aymara, in fact, make up not only the majority of the city’s population, but also that of El Alto, La Paz’s militant, red-brick alter ego, which continues to outstrip it in terms of rural migrant-boosted population, and often media coverage. Hi-tech international banks and government offices rub shoulders with vibrant street markets selling all manner of ritual paraphernalia for appeasing the spirits and mountain gods that still play a central role in the lives of the indigenous Aymara. Founded as a centre of Spanish power in the Andes, La Paz has always had a dual identity, with two very distinct societies – the indigenous and the European – coexisting in the same geographical space. Though protected to some extent from the tides of globalization by its isolation and singular cultural make-up, La Paz feels very much part of the twenty-first century, its manic bustle and offbeat, cosmopolitan feel luring travellers back time and again. With a population of around 835,000, La Paz is the political and commercial hub of Bolivia and the capital in all but name (technically, that honour belongs to Sucre).
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