30 Jan, 2013 | Niall Flynn; Joel Balsam

If the end of the world arrives on December 21, as the Mayans predicted, two things will survive: cockroaches and the Feria de El Alto. Every Sunday and Thursday, thousands flock to one of South Ameri...

30 Jan, 2013 | Joel Balsam

At the End of Days ‘It’s been a historical dilemma for Andean cities’, said Bolivian architect Mijael Bumuller. ‘An increase in demographics causes thousands to move to, and build on, the side of...

10 Jan, 2013 | Theo Haynes

Pimp my Ride, Bolivia Neon lights more evocative of the Christmas season than high-performance motoring; oversized exhausts with noises so strange they suggest engine malfunction rather than power;...

02 Jan, 2013 | Caroline Risacher

How Bolivia Is Going to Survive the Apocalypse The world is going to end on December 21, 2012, the Maya warned us. According to their beliefs, on that date we will arrive at the end of the 5,125-yea...

21 Nov, 2012 | Theo Haynes

Las Bellas Durmientes (Alma Films, 90 minutes, Bolivia - 2012)The story unfolds in a lawless world which ignores both victims and perpetrators alike. Quispe, a humble member of the special investiga...

21 Nov, 2012 | Harriet Mardsen

As a newcomer to La Paz, Bolivia, my first tentative explorations of the city took me to the mercado de las brujas, or ‘witches market’, which is where I first encountered a strange phenomenon - llama...

18 Nov, 2012 | Mila Araoz

Tantawawitas Todos Santos, a tradition in which the living welcome and share with the dead, has existed in some form or another since the beginning of the Spanish Conquest. The apxata is prepared us...

18 Nov, 2012 | Niall Flynn

My Facebook newsfeed: awash with Paceña nightclub e-flyers featuring pumpkins, vampire bats and witches on broomsticks. A trip to the local supermarket and a giant skeleton dangles from the entrance a...

18 Nov, 2012 | Caroline Risacher

Conceptions of Death in the Bolivian Andes According to the Aymara conception of the world, life is not a state but a process. Everything that exists – solid or conceptual – has an opposite compa...

18 Nov, 2012 | Harriet Mardsen

Imagine being invited to a stranger’s house for the first time. Whatever you may be expecting, whether unfamiliar trinkets or obscure family rituals, the idea of encountering a so-called “skeleton in...

18 Nov, 2012 | Kata Knezovic

The Journey the Living Must Make for the Dead ‘Okay, so you just stay quiet because we don’t want them to find out you’re a gringo’, my friend ordered me as we walked into the main office of the...

04 Nov, 2012 | Amaru Villanueva Rance

The Return It’s how it is, the earth calls for you’, Edson told me plainly, when he heard that I was thinking of returning to Bolivia after having lived abroad for almost a decade. Minutes earlie...

30 Oct, 2012 | Yanina Iskhakova

Caught between tradition and lifestyle The Jewish presence in Bolivia dates back to the 16th century but spiked most prominently during and after the Second World War when thousands of Jews fled...

02 Jul, 2012 | Matthew Grace

La Paz is host to a musical confluence of rhythms spanning the breadth of the country as well as international genres which range from jazz to classical music. While by no means comprehensive, below y...

02 Jul, 2012 | Eleanor Warnick

For many well-known Western musicians, success means profit and fame. A stereotypical Western pop star has a handful of number-one hits, with merchandise mounted on the walls of hormonal adolescents....