Bolivia

Bolivia is a landlocked South American country: the high Andean Altiplano and snow-capped ranges in the west, warm lowland plains and forests in the east. La Paz fills a deep canyon beneath snow-capped Illimani; cable cars link it with El Alto above, over colourful streets and markets. Nearby rise the eroded rock spires of the Valley of the Moon.

On the Altiplano lie Lake Titicaca with the Isla del Sol, and the ruins of Tiwanaku, an ancient city that flourished roughly between the 6th and 10th centuries. Further south, the vast white salt flat of Uyuni turns mirror-like after rain. Sucre’s white colonial centre and Potosí’s colonial architecture, both shaped from the 16th century on, are UNESCO-listed. In the warm east, lively, modern Santa Cruz de la Sierra is the gateway to the lowlands and the Jesuit Missions of Chiquitos, UNESCO-listed 17th–18th-century architecture.

At the table: salteñas, baked pastries with a juicy filling; api with pastel, a warm purple-corn drink with a fried pastry; quinoa dishes; Titicaca trout; and Tarija wines and singani, a grape brandy. The dry season, roughly May to October, brings the clearest highland skies and cool nights; the rainy season turns the salt flat into a mirror. Santa Cruz is warm and humid. Bolivia suits lovers of dramatic landscapes, photography, culture and colonial architecture, and couples.