🇧🇴 Bolivia
La Paz
La Paz (officially Nuestra Señora de La Paz — Our Lady of Peace) is the seat of government of Bolivia (Sucre is the constitutional capital; La Paz is the de facto administrative capital where the executive and legislative branches operate) — a city of 900,000 (2.7 million in the Bolivian Altiplano metropolitan area) at 3,640m altitude (the seat of government at the world's highest altitude), in a dramatic canyon cut by the Choqueyapu River in the Bolivian Altiplano, surrounded by the snow-capped peaks of the Cordillera Real (the Illimani — 6,438m — overlooks the city from the east). La Paz is one of the most visually extraordinary cities in the world: the city has grown by filling the canyon walls with informal housing (the hillside neighborhoods called 'barrios altos' — the brick-and-adobe settlements of the Aymara and Quechua indigenous majority that climb the steep canyon sides for 800 vertical meters above the colonial center), and the Mi Teleférico (the urban cable car network, opened 2014 and now the largest urban cable car system in the world with 10 lines and 10 stations) provides public transport between the bowl of the center and the rim cities of El Alto. The Witches' Market (Mercado de las Brujas — the market of the yatiris (Andean healers/shamans) where llama fetuses, dried frogs, medicinal herbs, and ritual objects for Pachamama (Mother Earth) offerings are sold) is the most singular market in the Americas. Best months: May–October (the Bolivian dry season).