magnificent trek in Bolivia from 6 to 7 days in the royal cordillera around the Illampu massif with several passes at more than 4500m

Welcome to Bolivia!Here you will discover some of the most beautiful landscapes of South America! (it is really true!!). We will take you to the incredible Salar de Uyuni, the breathtaking lagoons and volcanoes in Sajama National Park, the beautiful small town of Sucre or the impressive La Paz. Traveling to Bolivia is all that at once, incredible landscapes that could really come from another planet and we will remember this country forever.
Bolivia is also the country where Benoit first climbed over the symbolic 6000m by reaching the top of the Parinacota volcano (which goes up above 6300m)
Bolivia was really one of the countries we loved the most during our round the world trip and we hope we can come back one day fore some more adventures (maybe a multidays hike).
In all we spent a month in Bolivia and wrote 6 blog posts about this South American country. You will find all our articles at the end of this page, but if you prefer to see them on a map you can simply click on the button below to display our Bolivia travel map.
First thing: it's a great idea to come and visit Bolivia! :) It is most probably the country where we have been most impressed in terms of landscapes and their variety. There hasn't been a day where something did not Wooowwwed us away :)
Administration wise, Bolivia is quite simple: for French, Swiss, UK or Belgian nationals there is no need for a visa to enter Bolivia if the stay is less than 90 days.
A stamp is applied to the passport on arrival (by land or air) and allows a tourist stay of up to 3 months. Dead simple no?
For US citizens, a visa is required. The visa can be done on arrival and requires the following:
The visa issued is valid for 10 years and allow multiple territory entries.
In our case, we arrived in Bolivia by land (we were arriving from Peru) and also left by land for Chile. If you plan to arrive by plane then there is a good chance you will land in La Paz, the capital of Bolivia. At the moment there are no direct flights to Bolivia from France, Switzerland or Belgium, so your flight will have to be with a stopover (often in Spain, Brazil, Panama or Colombia).
Benoit's parents had joined us there when they came to spend a holiday with us while we were on our round the world trip.
In terms of budget, it costs about 650€ to 900€ for a return flight.
Then, for some reason that I don't really get... it seems that we regularly find cheaper flights to Santa Cruz de la Sierra than for La Paz... In other words, to find the best dealy my advice is to enter "Bolivia" as the destination country when you do your research on Skyscanner. Feel free to put "France" or "UK" or "Switzerland" as a starting point as well... By putting the whole country you can see the prices from the different departure airports and sometimes it is better to take a train and change city to get a cheaper flight.
The first thing to know is that since Bolivia is in the southern hemisphere, it means that the seasons are reversed: winter here is summer there and vice versa.
The second thing to know is that due to the variety of landscapes but also altitudes there is not one single climate rule.
Personally I recommend that you come in the so-called "dry" season, i.e. during the southern winter which extends between March/April and November. It is also possible to come between November and March, but there might be more rain. Seeing Uyuni's salar under a thin layer of water can be magical (we would really love to see that!), but you have to know that if it rains too much then the salar will not be accessible at all!
We arrived in Bolivia at the end of August and it was great. During the austral winter, temperatures can be cool (especially at altitude and in the Salar) but this is acceptable if you bring good jackets and a hat (and a pair of leggings);)
We are far from having seen everything in Bolivia... For example, the whole Amazonian part is totally unknown to us! But if we were to give you our best recommendations of the things to see and do in Bolivia would be:
Useful Infos
If you don't feel like organizing your entire stay by yourself or are looking for more inspiration for your itinerary in Bolivia, we recommend that you take a look at the Evaneos agency. They offer a wide range of tours that are either organized (with a guide) or in a "freedom" package that we find great: they take care of transportation, accommodations The agency works with local agencies and offers the same rates as if you would book directly in person.
We have regularly been asked the question whether Bolivia and Peru could be combined. So during a log trip: of course! That is what we have done.
On the other hand, I prefer to tell you that if you plan 2 weeks of vacation it seems like it's just too much. The journeys (buses mainly) are long and not always super comfortable... So really if you want to combine the 2 countries, I recommend you to plan at least 3 weeks and limit yourself to regions that are not too far from each other.
An idea for a 3-week itinerary could be:
You see it, even if you do a "light" program, it's a lot over 3 weeks... In short, I would rather recommend you to take your time and chose one or the other country.
After that, there are tours that will do it in 2 weeks including a lot of internal flights (the flights are not very expensive), but personally doing 5 or 6 flights withing 2 weeks seems like a total ecological aberration, so I don't recommend you consider this option.
In Bolivia the currency is called Boliviano (abbreviated Bs).
The exchange rate for this currency is relatively stable and generally fluctuates at 7.2-7.5 Bs per €1.
Card payments are possible in some hotels and good restaurants, but overall it is clearly better to plan cash rather than cards in Bolivia. Rather than leaving with large amounts of money in € or $, we recommend that you simply withdraw your money from ATMs.
There are many ATMs and during our visit we did not have the slightest problem to withdraw, international cards are well accepted. To limit bank charges, we recommend you to make sure you do not have any charges with your bank, or to subscribe to an online bank.
Bolivia is a very cheap country. To tell you the truth, this has been one of the cheapest country of our round the world trip (in terms of quality/price ratio).
In total we had a budget of 21.1€ per day and per person in Bolivia.
This budget includes many excursions (4 days at The Salar de Uyuni, the ascent of Parinacota, etc.). In addition, we had Ben's parents visiting us for 2 weeks, which pushed us to spend a little more than usual because we chose "a little better" accommodation and we ate less street food.
See our detailed budget and itinerary in Bolivia
Time Zone: Bolivia is located in the UTC -4 spindle in summer. This means that when it is noon in France, it is 6am in Bolivia. Note: In Bolivia there is no summer or winter time.
Official language in Bolivia: The official language of Bolivia is Spanish. If you have the basics, you will get by easily. After that, it should be noted that in Bolivia there are still many indigenous languages spoken (there are more than 30). But to tell you the truth, it is relatively unlikely that you will start speaking Queshua or Aymara... Spanish is clearly your best bet as english is only known by locals in touristic areas.
Sockets: The power sockets in Bolivia are of type A/C. In the A's we can use our European chargers, but for the C's you will need a universal adapter
Internet: This is more complicated.... :) No, in reality, the Internet is present in Bolivia in hotels and guesthouses. On the other hand, the speed is often quite limited. Things change over the years, but Bolivia is and remains one of the countries in South America with the worst internet connections. For our part we had always managed to access our emails, but on the other hand for the upload of photos we clearly waited until we were in Chile to make our backups. ;) (hopefully this has changed since our trip)
Health in Bolivia: Bolivia is not really the most advanced country in terms of medical technology. In case of a problem you will always find a doctor or a pharmacy, but this is clearly not the cutting edge of medicine. In other words, for Bolivia it is really important to have a good travel insurance. You don't have insurance? Have a look at our travel insurance comparison. The insurances presented are those we recommend for a round the world trip, but they can also be taken for shorter trips at advantageous rates.
The most important health-related risk is probably hygiene and water! It is clearly in Bolivia that we have encountered the most intestinal problems :) . It's no big deal, but let's say that the tourista was never far away. ;) In other words, never drink non filtered tap water (travel with a filter bottle), avoid ice cubes and, more generally, eat only well-cooked food or fruits that can be peeled.
Alternative for accommodations: You can compare hotels, apartments and guesthouses directly on the map below. Simply zoom in on the city of your choice and use the filters to refine the results:
Our video dates back from 2015 and is not quite what we might call a great achievement :) (to say the least), but it will still give you a great overview of our trip (and is a great memory for us). And if you want to come and see the videos we're making now, don't hesitate to come and subscribe to Our Youtube channel.
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magnificent trek in Bolivia from 6 to 7 days in the royal cordillera around the Illampu massif with several passes at more than 4500m
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1 month of travel through Bolivia to discover Sucre, La Paz, the highest volcano in Bolivia but also the incredible salt desert of Uyuni!
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The ascent of a 6000m was very important to me. The story of my experience on the Parinacota volcano (6348m), on the border between Bolivia and Chile
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Take a look at the volcanoes topping at more than 6000m that are reflected in lagoons while llama and alpaca herd: Welcome to Sajama in Bolivia
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Family holidays in Bolivia: It is with Benoit's parents that we went to discover the incredible region of the Uyuni and Sud Lipez salar! A highlight of our world tour!
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From La Paz, we left for 2 days on the Isla del Sol with my parents, in the heart of Lake Titicaca. Incredible sunsets and a view of the Cordillera Real at the rendezvous