Bolivia Family Adventure

Welcome to Bolivia! Our local partner will be waiting for you and your family at the airport and will accompany you to your hotel, assist with check-in and agree upon a time to have lunch or dinner together to go over your program and share information about La Paz, Bolivia and how to make the most of your time in this fascinating country! Be sure to take it easy today, there is 50% less oxygen in the air than at sea level and acclimatization is essential to enjoying yourselves.

La Paz Maravillosa or Marvelous La Paz is an accurate description of this dynamic city. Today we will soar across the valley where the city is located in the new cable car system, visit bustling markets and back streets, sample local cuisine and, to top it off, participate in an Andean cooking class led by students at El Alto’s Manq’a cooking school. The school is a central actor in the renaissance of traditional Andean foods, often fused with western elements, and trains youth from the city to be chefs and entrepreneurs. Buen provecho!

Ready for the World’s Most Dangerous Road? Today we head out of the Valley of La Paz en route to the Yungas Cloud Forest region. To get there, we climb (by coach) over the Cordillera Real and drop down the eastern slopes of the Andes, where the climate is humid and the mountainsides are covered in a cloud forest.

Upon arrival in the village of Yolosa (to meet up with optional bike riders), we’ll continue to Coroico for lunch. After lunch, we’ll visit a local coffee farm and the farm managers will take us on a short walk around the coffee plantation before keeping us busy roasting, grinding, preparing and enjoying a delicious cup! We then stop by Coroico for a bit of free time before settling into our lodgings for the evening.

The infamous coca leaf is one of the Yungas region’s most important crops. While known internationally as a precursor of cocaine, the leaf has many other uses and is an integral part of Bolivian culture. Today we visit the community of Tocana, an Afro-Bolivian community where most of the residents are coca leaf farmers. We’ll visit a farm, chat with farmers and their families and learn about local culture, music, foods, and nature. Mid-afternoon we head back to La Paz where you’ll have the evening free to prepare for tomorrow’s departure for the Uyuni Salt Flats.

It’s an early start today as we head up to El Alto International Airport for a 45-minute flight to the south and the town of Uyuni, gateway to the Uyuni Salt Flats and Eduardo Avaroa Reserve. We’ll head straight out to the flats from the Uyuni airport and visit the famed (and rusting) train cemetery, the salt-harvesting village of Colchani and the bizarre Fish Island, covered in enormous cacti and surrounded by a sea of salt.

After lunch, we hit the slopes of the serene (and massive) Thunupa Volcano where there will be time for a short hike before heading back across the flats, just in time for sunset and some incredible star-gazing. Bundle up, it gets cold at night!

Today is a day filled with surreal landscapes, tiny villages, Andean flora and fauna and wide open skies. We depart Uyuni after breakfast in a comfortable 4WD jeep, heading to the south and passing by a series of lakes and lagoons, each one a different (and often shocking) color.

We’ll stop for photos, a nice picnic lunch, some short walks to vista points and wildlife observation. Three species of flamingo inhabit this region and if conditions are right we are bound to see a few hundred of them. We will also visit some unusual geological formations, similar to those found on other planets and formed by wind and water erosion. Our lodgings are reached by nightfall and there will be more star-gazing to be done in a region with virtually no light pollution – incredible!

After an early breakfast and optional dip in local thermal waters, our journey through the lunar landscapes of the southern altiplano continues today as we turn back toward the north and travel through the Dali Desert, pass by the Green Lagoon and otherwise enjoy the scenery. If time permits, a short hike will be possible today and is a nice break form the drive. We reach Uyuni mid-afternoon and check in for our evening flight back to La Paz.

After a week of intense and exhilarating activity, today is a free day in La Paz. Travelers can have the day (or part of it) to themselves or chose to participate, at additional cost, in one or two local programs, such as a hike in nearby Huayna Potosi Mountain or Palca Canyon or to go shopping for handicrafts with an expert guide who can help you learn about the rich traditions of artisanry in the Andes. Your guide will join you for a farewell dinner and tour wrap up, thank you so much for visiting Bolivia!

Airport transfer according to departure time.