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Bolivia’s City of Our Lady of Peace is anything but peaceful. It’s chaotic, often lawless (most especially in its infamous San Pedro jail where the inmates run the prison) and choked with acrid car fumes.

La Paz isn’t so much a city as a disaster zone. You could rope off the whole place with orange tape and declare it unsafe for visitors.

But then you’d be missing something fiercely mad and compelling.

Topographically, La Paz makes no sense. The city of 1.5 million is built on a canyon which once had 200 rivers running through it. Brick houses, adobe homes and concrete edifices teeter atop, and often spill over; they are just dry fragile pillars of mud and stone. The clay is so soft and pale it looks like an accumulation of dust.

Astronaut Neil Armstrong visited the city in 1970 and described it’s most distinctive natural marvels as a moonscape. That area is now called Valley of the Moon and is one of the city’s major tourist destinations.

The business districts and wealthy neighbourhoods are all at the bottom of the canyon while the poor cling to the rims. Visitors arriving by bus from Peru will pass through the worst of the lot, El Alto, which sits at 4,300m. This makeshift, dismal yet optimistically energetic city on the outskirts of La Paz almost prepares you for the improbability of La Paz proper at 3660m.

Visiting La Paz takes some getting used to, in part because the high altitude requires its own adjustments. “Walk slowly, eat little and sleep by yourself,” advise the locals.

Actually walking slowly is the best thing to do in La Paz. The city may be short on must-see attractions but it’s big on intoxicating street life and sights. La Paz thrives on industry and commerce.

And really it’s pretty safe for gringos – apart from the odd false policeman or false taxi who could both take you for a ride. The rule is never let go of your passport.

Starting early you might see men lining the streets waiting for casual work or others standing by signs which advertise their skills as plumbers or electricians. The minimum salary in this country of 9 million is equivalent to about $100 a month.

Contrast that with the wealthy areas where houses sell for about $600,000 and where there are more maids than children.

Overhead in both rich and poor suburbs thick electric wires link the city like tangled black braid. Towering over the wires and mud cliffs and pillars you can often glimpse the giant 6439m triple peak of Illimani.

The world’s highest downhill skiing (5320m to 4900m) is nearby too on the slopes of Chacaltaya, though it’s strictly for enthusiasts. Most people only manage a couple of runs before gasping for oxygen. Also the ski field is located on a retreating glacier and that adds more than a little uncertainty to the operation.

A better bet is the world’s highest 18-hole golf course (3318m) at the La Paz Golf Club.

Most of La Paz’s major sights are in the city centre or suburban Zona Sur. Museums are plentiful and varied. Everything from the National Archaeology Museum with wonderful gold exhibits to the National Art Museum, an ethnography and folklore museum and a museum dedicated to the revolution (Bolivia has had over 100 revolutions).

You used to be able to visit the creepy San Pedro prison where there are no guards and the inmates hold the keys to their own cell. English-speaking inmates led guided tours for foreigners but this has recently stopped.

The Museo de la Coca is open though so you can trace the sacred leaf’s role in traditional culture, its use by soft-drink and pharmaceutical companies and follow the emergence of cocaine as an illicit drug.

And back in the centre of town you can visit impressive churches with treasures of gold-leaf. Round the corner from one of the largest and oldest (Iglesia de San Francisco founded in 1548) is the Witches Market which provides another way of dealing with good and evil. The witches are mostly natural healers though black and white magic is commonly used. Even now most Bolivians prefer ancient Andean medicine to hospitals.

This is also the centre of the tourist shopping precinct and it’s where you can stock up on cheap bowler hats, alpaca knits, mats, bags and jewellery.

But it costs you nothing just to look, so pick a spot at one of the many cafes on the main road and watch the street fizz around you. The food is mediocre but proudly Bolivian. MacDonalds failed in this city. Shoe shine boys look menacing in black balaclavas but they’re worn to hide their shame at having to stoop to such a lowly job. Mobile pizza ovens, old women selling alpaca pashminas, a passing brass band, stalls selling rip-off CDs – its lively even as the temperature plummets in the evening.

But even hardy Bolivianos need to huddle somewhere warm at night so the stalls are packed up by 10pm and re-open again at 8am.

Like it or not, you’ll find you’re up early with them the next morning. High altitude wrecks your sleep and the high energy of La Paz finishes it off entirely.

Getting there: LAN flights between Auckland & Santiago operate 6 times a week and through to La Paz 4 times a week. For more info visit www.lan.com

Attractions: With Lonely Planet’s Bolivia in hand and a good city map you can find most of the major attractions and the museums yourself. Or you can hop on the double-decker city tour bus run by Viajes Planeta for a four hour jump-on, jump-off tour of the city and southern circuits (including the Valley of the Moon) or take a tour with one of the many tour agencies. World Expeditions use EBA Tours. Ask at your hotel for details.

Costs: Cheap. Budget hotels start at less than $10 per person per night while top end hotels start from $120 per person per night. A pizza at a top-end hotel costs about $4.

Read: Even if you have no intention of going to La Paz, Rusty Young’s Marching Powder (Pan Macmillan) is a fascinating though not brilliant read. Young spent four months inside the prison interviewing a British inmate.

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