Bolivia

Riding the cable car system, Mi Teleférico, in La Paz, Bolivia. I assumed this was a tourist attraction when I saw it in pictures, but La Paz is the first city in the world with a public transit system made up of mostly cable cars.

Locals recommended drinking coca tea to help adjust to the altitude—La Paz sits at 11,900 ft and is the highest administrative capital in the world. The leaves can also be chewed which will numb your mouth like novocaine. You'll see locals chewing the leaves throughout the day for an energy boost.

La Paz Day festivities in San Francisco Plaza. The holiday celebrates the beginning of the Bolivian revolution.

The city of Copacabana, which sits on the Bolivian side of Lake Titicaca. I always thought this lake was the highest in the world, but it's "only" the highest "navigable" (whatever that means) in the world at 12,500 ft. This was 4 hr west of La Paz by bus.

Inca ruins on Isla del Sol, 2 hrs by boat from Copacabana. Animals were likely sacrificed on this table. The shoreline in the distance is Peru. There's a trail you can hike on the island that takes you to all of the ruins and is only 4 mi, but I thought my heart was going to explode the whole time because of the altitude.

An alpaca at the hotel I stayed at in Copacabana

Roadblocks are common in Bolivia. This was one outside of the city of Uyuni in protest of the new bus terminal. I was told vendors will lose customers because of the new location. The other riders and I took the overnight bus 10 hrs from La Paz and got dropped off 5 mi from the city. Luckily, we found taxis after a mile or so of walking.

The train graveyard outside of Uyuni. Bolivia has the largest lithium reserve in the world. Most of the lithium the country currently produces passes through the active set of tracks here. Surprisingly, Bolivia is also South America's poorest country. Their government is still developing the process to efficiently mine the metal, which is harder to do at high altitudes.

Obligatory Salar de Uyuni (Uyuni Salt Flats) perspective shot. I didn't want to do this, but the guide made me.

Isla Incahuasi in the Uyuni Salt Flats. The island used to be a coral reef. On the other side of the mountains in the distance is the Atacama, from where the cactus seeds were carried by hummingbirds.

The city of Potosí, Bolivia, with the peak of Cerro Rico in the background. Historians estimate that eight million native Quechua slaves died extracting silver from the mountain for the Spanish crown between the 16th and 18th centuries. The mountain has been excavated to the point that it may collapse. The mines are still active today, but the locals now mine lesser metals like tin.

The courtyard of the Casa de la Moneda (National Mint of Bolivia) in Potosí. It was here that silver from Cerro Rico was made into coins. The face of Bacchus (Roman god of wine) still gives me nightmares.

On the roof of Iglesia de San Felipe Neri in Sucre, which is called the "White City" by locals. Sucre is the official capital of Bolivia.

The ruins of El Fuerte outside of Samaipata, Bolivia. The Inca and native Chané lived together here starting as early as the 15th century. Archaeologists believe chicha (corn beer) was ceremoniously poured down the two channels in the distance. The wall in the middle was possibly used to identify the solstices and determine which crops should be planted. The eroded circular carving closer in the shot is of a jaguar.

A capybara in the Pantanal. The capybara is the largest rodent in the world. At ten times the size of the Everglades, the Pantanal is the largest wetlands in the world and covers parts of Bolivia, Paraguay, and Brazil. I crossed back into Brazil and stayed at a lodge outside of the city of Corumbá for three days.

Al Camino de la Muerte (Death Road), a 43 mi dirt road that connects La Paz to the Amazon. It's estimated that 300 people fell to their death from it annually before the new road was built.

Dead baby llamas at the Witches' Market in La Paz. They're burned as offerings to Pachamama (Mother Nature).