Flight from Sucre to La Paz and La Paz city tour

August 19th, 2003

Flight from Sucre to La Paz, landing at El Alto, one of the world's highest airport with scheduled airline service. City tour of La Paz, visiting the modern downtown and continuing with some souvenir shopping at the street vendors selling local handicrafts.

The day starts with a short Aerosur's Boeing 727-100 flight to La Paz, offering a nice view over the Andes. On the pictures: the airplane, a view of sucre after takeoff (top-right) and a view over the site containing the dinosaur footprints (bottom-left).

With its 4050 metres of elevation, El Alto of La Paz is one of the world's highest airport. With an air thin like this, strange things happens and pilots are required to have a special certification to operate here. The airport is also surrounded on three sides by high terrain, exceeding 6000 metres of elevation and turbolence, as well as windshear on short final, isn't uncommon.

The highway connecting El Alto to La Paz, offers spectacular views on the city. La Paz was build inside a valley 400 metres under the altiplano (to get warmer weather) but, when the space finished, they had to build on the canyon's side, ending up to continue on the altiplano again.

Panoramic photo of La Paz taken from the same highway.

The narrow spaces between the buildings, let to see the high mountains all around. On the right picture, mount Ilimani exceeding 6000 metres of elevation.

Picture of La Paz main street, with its tall buildings and wide streets.

Indeed, most streets in La Paz are much more narrow andstreet vendors selling local handicrafts can be found on the sides.

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