1092 BOLIVIA - A Bolivian Aymara little girl

The ethnic composition of Bolivia, officially known as the Plurinational State of Bolivia, is very diverse, the majority (55%) being formed from Indigenous, also called "originarios" or Amerindians, to which are added mestizo (30%), white (15%), Afro Bolivians, and Asians. The largest of the approximately three dozen native groups are the Quechuas (2.5 million), Aymaras (2 million), Chiquitano (180,000), and Guaraní (125,000). Andeans, as the Aymaras and Quechuas (which formed the ancient Inca Empire), are concentrate in the western departments of La Paz, Potosí, Oruro, Cochabamba and Chuquisaca, and the oriental ethnic population, composed by the Guaraní and Moxos, among others, inhabit the departments of Santa Cruz, Beni, Tarija and Pando.

0771 BOLIVIA (La Paz) - La Paz

On his full name Nuestra Señora de La Paz (Our Lady of Peace), the administrative capital of Bolivia is located in the western part of the country, at an elevation of roughly 3,650m above sea level, being the world's highest de facto capital city, or administrative capital (Quito is the highest legal capital). The city sits in a "bowl" surrounded by the high mountains of the altiplano. Overlooking it is towering triple-peaked Illimani (in the postcard), which is always snow-covered and can be seen from several spots of the city.

0414 BOLIVIA - Laguna Verde of Potosí

It seems that southwest Bolivia contains some wildest and spectacular landscapes, including the Laguna Verde (Green Lagoon), a salt lake located in the Potosí Department, near to the borders with Chile and Argentina, on the altiplano, at the foot of the volcano Licancabur (5,920m), a highly symmetrical and active stratovolcano which dominates the landscape of the Salar de Atacama area, situated at 55km south of San Pedro de Atacama (Chile).

0341 BOLIVIA (La Paz) - Tiwanaku: Spiritual and Political Centre of the Tiwanaku Culture - Puerta del Sol (UNESCO WHS)

 

In ca. 750AD, when Tiwanaku (also spelled Tiahuanaco), the capital city of a powerful empire that dominated a large area of the southern Andes and beyond, reached its apogee, Iberian Peninsula had just been conquered by Moors and Spanish people hadn't been formed yet. Not even Spanish, the language in which the conquistador Pedro Cieza de Leon will write, for the first time, about the ruins of this civilization, doesn't exist yet.

Little is known about the city itself, located on the southern shore of the Lake Titicaca, along the present border between Bolivia and Peru, because its inhabitants left no written history, but the material evidences, whether it's about their monumental constructions or about pottery, prove a high level of civilization. It seems that around 400 AD, Tiwanaku went from being a locally dominant force to a predatory state, extending its domination in the ensuing centuries over the portions of what is now Peru, Argentina, Chile, and Bolivia, order for around 1000 AD to completely disappear. So when the conquering Inca arrived in this region, to the mid-15th century, the site had been mysteriously abandoned for half a millennium.