Travel to La Paz

Long before the Spanish captain Alonso de Mendoza founded Nuestra Señora de La Paz on October 20, 1548, this dramatic Andean valley lay within reach of one of the most sophisticated civilizations of the ancient Americas. Just 72 kilometers away stand the ruins of Tiwanaku, the spiritual and political center of a pre-Columbian culture that flourished between 500 and 900 CE, reaching its zenith as one of the largest cities of its time, with population estimates ranging from around 10,000 to as many as 70,000. This civilization mastered high-altitude agriculture, raised megalithic architecture that still puzzles engineers today, and tracked the movements of the heavens with remarkable precision.

The Aymara people, descendants of the Tiwanaku world, called this valley Chuquiago Marka, meaning gold farm, for the precious metal found in its rivers. When Mendoza established the Spanish settlement to mark the end of Peru’s civil wars, he chose the site for its strategic position between the silver mines of Potosí and the Pacific coast. Originally founded at nearby Laja, the settlement was quickly moved into the more sheltered canyon of the Choqueyapu River, where it grew into the extraordinary vertical metropolis seen today, bridging ancient indigenous tradition with colonial grandeur and modern innovation.