La Paz: Cable Car, Moon Valley & Witches Market Tour

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Free cancellationTravelers' pick

1/42

Duration4h–5h

GroupUp to 30

LanguagesEN · ES

PickupAt your hotel

Five cable car lines and a geology lesson in the clouds above La Paz

You ride five cable car lines across La Paz's canyon, walk through the otherworldly Valley of the Moon, then descend through colonial Jaen Street, Plaza Murillo, and the Witches Market. Transport, cable car entry, and a guide who knows what things mean are included. The tour is built for the first day, when altitude is still a factor and you want the main sights without arranging them yourself.

4h–5h

Step-by-step itinerary

Explore La Paz highlights and surroundings

Visit Valley of the Moon
Ride La Paz cable cars
Explore El Alto city
Walk Jaen Street museums
Visit Plaza Murillo
Tour San Francisco Church
Shop at Witches' Market

The Experience

You've just landed at El Alto, the world's highest capital airport, and your lungs already know it. The air is thin up here on the Altiplano at 3,650 meters, and the city below spreads across a canyon like it was dropped there by accident. A private guide picks you up and the tour starts right away—no waiting, no confusion about where to go next. That matters when you're adjusting to altitude and you've got maybe half a day before jet lag hits.

The first stop is the Valley of the Moon, a short drive from the city center. It's not actually a valley, but a maze of eroded rock formations that look like they belong on another planet—towers, spires, shapes that have no names. The ground is rust-colored and fragile, and your guide will tell you to bring sunscreen and a hat because there's no shade and the sun reflects off the stone. You walk through it for maybe an hour, and the strangeness of the landscape makes you forget you're tired. Then you head back toward the city, and that's when the cable cars begin.

La Paz built the world's first cable car network as actual public transport, not a tourist attraction, and you'll ride five different lines. Each one climbs higher, and each one gives you a different angle on the city and the Cordillera Real mountains in the distance. The views are the kind that make you understand why people live in a place that sits this high and this steep. You'll stop at El Alto, the Aymara capital, where the population is mostly indigenous and the energy is completely different from La Paz proper. Your guide will point out things a solo traveler would miss—the markets, the neighborhoods, how the city actually works.

Coming back down, you walk Jaen Street, one of the best-preserved colonial streets in the city, lined with museums and old buildings that show what La Paz looked like centuries ago. Then Plaza Murillo, the political heart of the city, surrounded by the Presidential Palace and the Cathedral. And finally the Witches Market, where vendors sell ritual ingredients, dried llama fetuses, herbs, and things tourists photograph but don't quite understand. It's crowded and loud and genuinely strange, and your guide will explain what things are actually for instead of letting you guess. The whole tour takes about five to six hours, cable car tickets and all transport included, and by the end you've seen the city from above, walked through its geology, and touched its colonial past and living present in one afternoon.

What’s included

Cable car tickets across five lines, private transport between all stops, and a guide who explains the city's history, geology, and living culture as you move through it. You walk the Valley of the Moon, ride the cable cars with views of the Cordillera Real, explore colonial Jaen Street and its museums, stand in Plaza Murillo surrounded by government buildings, and finish at the Witches Market where your guide translates what vendors are actually selling.

Good to know

Easy physical levelPublic transport nearbyNot for heart conditions

Operated by WONDER TOURS, LA PAZ

Is this one for you?Book this if you've just arrived in La Paz and want the main sights in one afternoon without arranging transport, cable car tickets, and timing yourself—the fixed route and included entry are what make it possible to see the city from above, below, and at street level before your first evening.