Practical information

LP = found in the EDT-Lonely Planet guide, 3rd Italian edition. * Period: 4/11/05-26/11/05. * Exchange rate: 1 US$=8 bolivianos (bs), 1€=8.5 bs, 1€ = 1.17 US$. It is far more convenient to change dollars since, as you can see, the euro was paid about 10% less than the cross rate would suggest. Credit cards accepted only in some establishments, sometimes applying a minimum surcharge of 3% on the amount.

* Transport El Alto airport-city centre: first asking price for the taxi 50bs, after some bargaining from 30/35 bs. Taxi ride in La Paz: usually 10bs. Potosí-Sucre: radio taxi, 30bs each, lasting about two hours, perfect road. Villazon-Tupiza: taxi hailed on the street, 250bs, lasting about 2 hours, terrible road. Tupiza-Potosí: Globo line bus, 40bs.

* Accommodation: La Paz: Hotel La Joya (LP). To call it "magnificent and almost elegant" is more than generous for a hotel that offered us perfectly ordinary rooms. Good cleanliness, hot water all day and satellite TV do play in its favour, though. Breakfast is quite good too, served on the freezing but panoramic top floor, included in the price of 81bs each. There is better.

Tupiza: Hotel Mitru (LP) 120bs for a double. Excellent, very clean, satellite TV, boiling water in the showers, pool, small library. Choose rooms facing the inner garden, much quieter than those on the street which from 5 in the morning starts coming to life even with heavy traffic. Breakfast included in the price is rather poor but for very few bs you can add fruit salads, eggs and whatever else you like. Recommended. If you arrive by train at 4.20 in the morning (a theoretical time that usually suffers considerable delay) and go straight to the hotel, you'll probably be charged for the current night since check-in is fixed at six. You can try to save the cost of a night by negotiating at reception.

Potosì: Hotel Jerusalem (LP), 210bs for a rather gloomy but clean double. Compared with the other places we stayed the price is undoubtedly excessive, even though the buffet breakfast included (fruit, eggs, cereals, juices, smoothies and more) was exceptional, the best of all. Not recommended: too expensive for what is offered.

Hostal Compania de Jesus (LP): 100bs for a double and 60bs for a single with breakfast, simple but clean rooms, hot water all day. If you need transport ask at reception: they called us the radio taxi to Sucre which cost 30bs each instead of the 50 asked by the street taxi drivers. Recommended.

Sucre: Casa de huespedes Colon 220 (LP). 100bs double, 70bs single. Nice house with an inner patio, spacious clean rooms, satellite TV, simple breakfast included, an educated and well-informed owner. Recommended.

Jujuy (Argentina): Hotel Winnie, a gloomy, dark 2-star for 40 pesos a double and 30 a single, with simple breakfast included. Not recommended. (1€=2.92 pesos)

Humahuaca (Argentina): Hostal Azul, B.M. Milagrosa, tel (3887)421596/421107 hostalazul@arnet.com.ar. 80 pesos for a double and 50 for a single, breakfast included, just outside the town but elegant, comfortable and spotless, with a good, cheap restaurant. The best hotel we found.

* Meals La Paz: comedor JS, on the stairway leading from calle Ingavi to calle Comercio. Very busy, but only with locals, it offers a good four-course almuerzo for 7bs each. Tambo Colonial (LP): almost exclusively foreign clientele but the food and the service are excellent. Starters 10bs, main courses with a salad buffet 30/35bs. Empanada stall at the top of the stairway between the Prado and calle Mexico (LP): overcrowded because they are delicious, open only in the morning.

Tupiza: comedor Pollo de oro, calle Florida: four-course almuerzo, good, 7bs each. Pizzeria Tupizza, Plaza Indipendencia: we were told it is the best pizzeria in town and, if you are tired of eating meat, it can be a decent alternative. Comedor Callujon, avenida Serrano: good almuerzo at 10bs each. California, Plaza Indipendencia: only so-so, with main courses around 20/25 bs.

Potosì: Sumak Orcko (LP), generous and cheap almuerzo. Quality only so-so.

Sucre: Asador El bisonte (zero tourists, isolated and far from the centre, go by taxi). Excellent beef and llama fillets with sides at about 25bs. For a full meal with water and local wine budget about 50bs each. Repizza (LP): for an excellent almuerzo with salad buffet, drinks included, you'll spend about 20/25bs each. El Germen (LP): at this almost exclusively vegetarian restaurant, for about 40/50bs each you'll get a truly excellent full meal with wine and water. Nothing to say: recommended.

Jujuy (Argentina): restaurant Krysys (LP) rather pretentious, poor food and, if you are coming from Bolivia, stratospheric prices, i.e. about 40/50 pesos each for a meal with wine.

* Salar tour. With Tupiza Tours (LP), 5 days and 4 nights, 3 people in a private rather old Toyota Land Cruiser jeep, transfer to San Pedro de Atacama by minibus included, at 670US$ all inclusive. That is 220US$ each and is certainly quite expensive compared with the usual 100/120 dollars of shared-car tours; do not underestimate, though, the fact of occupying the back seats of the jeep covering over 1200km of rough dirt road three-up instead of six, not to mention the greater freedom of decision you'll have travelling on your own. At the start of the tour you may have doubts but in the end we were more than happy to have paid a little extra. The service offered was excellent and our two companions, the driver Ricardo and the cook Magalì, were really kind and helpful. The food was good and varied throughout the trip and water, drinks and snacks were never lacking.

As for the accommodation there isn't much choice: a certain comfort seems to be found only at the salt hotels, otherwise they are truly very spartan places, where you have to adapt to the lack of electricity (provided only in the evening for 3/4 hours), of hot water and, in one case, of running water made available only in iron drums.

Not to be missed:

La Paz: worth seeing not for its architecture or monuments but only for the frantic and picturesque activity that reigns supreme; Sucre: without doubt the most beautiful Bolivian city, clean, quiet, orderly. Potosì: splendid palaces, now crumbling, witnesses of the wealth that was. Tupiza: its surroundings deserve a couple of days' attention. The bicycle seems to be the ideal means The salar: even after seeing it, you won't believe it. The lagoons: Canapa, Colorada, Hedionda, Verde, Celeste and the natural scenery surrounding them are extraordinary. For us this was the heart of the trip. Anyone who loves mountain nature, space and silence will struggle to find better in the world. Quebrada de Humahuaca (Argentina): very beautiful, especially near Purmamarca. A car is essential.

We hired in Jujuy, at a large travel agency on Belgrano, a new Fiat Siena, unlimited mileage, at a cost of 160 pesos a day. We then arranged with them to leave the car at the La Quiaca border, where their agent, arriving by bus, picked it up. This option cost us 140 pesos but consider that we didn't have to take the vehicle back to Jujuy after visiting the Quebrada (about 300 km) and that we saved the bus ticket (about 35 pesos each) to return to the border and re-enter Bolivia. We loved the town of Humahuaca, with its shady square, its cobbled streets, its contagious calm. The Bolivians: you don't know a people w