Top Altiplano Walking Tours

Highly recommend! I’ve been on about 50 free walking tours around the world, and this was among the best. Their insights and storytelling made me love Bolivia and want to learn more and more. Thanks Max for being an amazing guide!

Our guide Max is from El Alto so he knows about the city first hand. We learned a lot of the city’s history, culture, urban myth even political landscape. It was very informative. He was also very helpful, suggested local restaurants and even provided his contact for follow up questions.

This has surely bene One of the best experiences of my whole Life. The guide, Remberto, Is really and Expert of Bolivian culture and traditions and he guided us, using public transportations, through the most significant parts of the city. This Is really a wonderful tour, greatly suggested.

Jiwaki really made our Bolivia experience what it was which is incredible. They made pretty great food 5000m, they took such good care of us, and they gave us the necessary training in mountaineering! I could not recommend Jiwaki enough for any trip you may want.The highlight of our trip though was our guide José. He took such amazing care of us to the point of even taking our water bottles out of our bags when we were thirsty so we could preserve that energy. He is literally the best guide and an incredible person. 100/10 experience!!!

I am very satisfied with the ascent of Hyana Potosi organized from May 2 to 4. I chose a personal guide and the transport of my backpack between the two camps. The guide was very patient: at 64 years old, this greatly helped me reach the summit. I thank Jiwaki for his meticulous organization.

Loved this tour a lot. Our guide Max had a lot of passion and gave us interesting insights. Can totally recommend.

On the city tour, Max brought us much closer to the history, politics, and life in La Paz and Bolivia. His explanations were always very vivid and profound, as well as seasoned with a pinch of humor. Thanks to his good English, our children were also able to follow along well. There was no question to which he would not have had an honest and well-founded answer. All in all, highly recommended!!!

The tour was fascinating and an amazing value for money. Our guide Max was exceptional and he made every minute of it strongly engaging, providing us with detailed explanations and having patience for us to ask as many questions as we want. Very strongly recommend.

It is worth it! The tour is well organized, with regular meals and many guides on summit day (we go in a rope team: 1 guide, 2 participants). Unfortunately, I had some altitude issues on summit day, which is why I was separated from my partner, who was then added to another group (since it wasn’t clear whether I might have to turn back). My guide, Juan Cruz, took excellent care of me the whole time, so I even made it all the way to the top. He is a very experienced guide and is always helpful and friendly. I can recommend this tour to anyone; even though it is very strenuous, it is a once-in-a-lifetime experience.It’s worth it! The tour is well organized, with regular meals, and plenty of guides on summit day (we hike in a rope team: 1 guide, 2 participants). Unfortunately, I had some altitude issues on summit day, which is why I was separated from my partner, who was then added to another group (since it wasn’t clear whether I might have to turn back). My guide, Juan Cruz, took excellent care of me the whole time, so I even made it all the way to the top. He is a very experienced guide and is always helpful and friendly. I can recommend this tour to anyone; even though it is very strenuous, it is a once-in-a-lifetime experience.

Our guide Max was full of good energy and could tell us so much about this country, city, the traditions and we learned a lot! It was amazing and I can just recommend it! Thanks a lot!

Jose was a friendly and accommodating tour guide. Very informative about the cemetery and the Sharmans. We then on to the Cholitas which was excellent.

I can’t put into words how amazing this experience was… we did the 3 day tour and throughout the trip we had amazing food every day, lovely people that we met and so many moments we will remember for the rest of our lives. The training day was so fun, the rest day and trek to the next camp was necessary (I wouldn’t recommend the 2 day because of the altitude) then summit day… just wow. Our guide was Celestino and he was amazing, he encouraged us every step of the way, made our summit day as flexible as possible even leaving early so we could make it in time, and looked after us every step of the way. He even look more photos for us and sent it to us the next day, he’s a legend and we couldn’t be more grateful for him. Overall, this company looked after us so well and encouraged us so much that I don’t think we could’ve done it without them! In other words, book the trip!! 🙌💪😊

guide was walking too fast have a lot of knowledge

Max was our tour guide and he made it the best walking tour I’ve ever been on. It was super engaging the entire time and everything Max talked about was very interesting. I learnt so much about the history and current situation of La Paz and Bolivia from this tour. Highly recommend!

We had like a private tour since only the three of us were waiting for the tour that day. Max was an excellent guide throughout the visit, which lasted some 3 hours. Although he gave us very detailed informations at all 5 sites (as announced), he answered all of our numerous questions with much knowledge and local experience. We highly recommend this tour for starting your stay in La Paz, such an amazing city you want to explore more thanks to the guide.

At 8 am we left our beloved little hotel and headed with our large backpack to the Jiwaki office where we had booked our trek to the top of Huayna Potosi. We had been there twice in the past few days because we had seen that the weather hadn't been great in the past few days and there was even a possibility of snow on the mountain. But "no problem" assured all Jiwaki employees us. Getting to the top was certainly possible. All trust in the organization, which had already brought us safely to Pico Austria, so we went for it.First we had to fit our equipment in the little office; we got an extra fleece sweater and jogging bottoms, a puffer jacket, and waterproof jacket and trousers, and "crevetten" (those are shin guards to prevent snow from getting into your shoes). After an hour on the bus, we stopped at a warehouse for our snow boots, crampons (those hooks for under your shoes), and axe - it was serious here. In the van, we met two Belgian couples who were also aiming for the summit, although they were going to make it a three-day trip to acclimatize even more, we would ride together to the Basecamp at 4700m altitude.While trying on the snow boots, the weather outside suddenly changed, a rain shower was followed by one or two hailstorms. Exciting, but it would turn out well, right? The whiter the landscape became as we drove further with the van. Until we were really driving through the snow. When we saw the bus slip in the snow, we all prudently fastened our seatbelts. And we stood still. Further on for us, a whole bus was stuck in the snow, our guide went to help, while the two buses from Jiwaki put on their snow chains. We had to stop twice more because the tires of the van slipped on the snow in front of us. Until there was nothing else on it, then: get out, pack all the stuff (bags full of our equipment, backpacks, food...), all on our backs and walk further to base camp. That the drivers and guides started filming and photographing everything meanwhile showed us that this was not normal and not foreseen.When we arrived at the simple base camp after a 20-minute walk with soaking wet feet, the guides started the midday meal while we received our briefing. With our tweets, we booked a two-day trip and were going to hike 2.5 hours to "High camp" after lunch, to sleep there and get up at 1 o'clock to hike to the top at 6 o'clock. With all the delays, we were only ready for our journey at 3 pm, everyone else looked at us with awe and wished us good luck. It was snowing heavily outside in the meantime.But our guide Ismaël was completely convinced, "let's try"! With our plastic snow boots on, our helmet on, and all the other equipment in our heavy backpack (I had put Marijk's crampons in mine because her bag was heavier than mine), we set off. The first kilometer was still effectively via a path, as if someone had made a little road with a snow shovel, which was reasonably easy to follow. But also on this path we sank easily about 20cm in the snow. Due to the snowfall and our regular sunglasses, we really couldn't see well, and when the word "avalanches" came up, Marijke got a little scared, she is not a skier and had never been in the snow like that before. I gave her a pep talk and shared my enthusiasm, because actually I thought this was super cool and assured her that it was too flat here for an avalanche (which was also effective) and after digging through the snow a bit more, she also got into the fun.So we went on, even though the wind was blowing and the snow sometimes cut our faces, we enjoyed the snow and the crazy experience. Regularly we had to stop so that Ismaël could contact guide "José" who caught up with us 10 minutes after departure and turned out to be the "explorer," who constantly confirmed whether we could continue (or not). The many stops combined with the snow in which we sometimes sank up to our hips caused us to make slow progress. At a certain point, another guide came towards us from above, shook his head at Ismaël and pointed to his body that the snow in High camp reached below his armpits! We started to doubt the feasibility of our trip. We asked Ismaël, who could barely speak English, no matter where we were, "oh a quart maybe". We asked him again if it was safe and feasible to continue: "let's try" was the answer.After plowing for a few hundred more meters in the snow, it was suddenly already 5 p.m. We knew it would be dark within an hour and asked Ismaël again about the feasibility: "Almost halfway, behind that peak is high camp," was the answer. We further understood that we could still try to go to High camp, but: the wind would increase, we had already been traveling for two hours and were only halfway on a route that normally takes 2.5 hours, would only arrive around 8-9 o'clock and thus have to walk in the dark with our headlamps...? Marijke and I looked at each other for a moment and discussed the situation. No matter how cool it was, climbing in the dark in this snow and even more wind and that peak... No, that is too dangerous and too heavy. Ismaël finally agreed and said "I would recommend go back to basecamp."And we did that too, luckily it went downhill now and thus a bit faster, but only snow had fallen. At a certain point, Marijke asked, "are we going a different way?" But no, it was the same "path" that was buried under 20-30cm of snow in two hours! When Marijke stumbled and fell off the ridge and luckily landed a meter lower in the deep snow, we knew 200% for sure that we had made the right choice. Enough adventure for us.Back at the base camp, we shared our adventures, photos, and videos with the other travelers and guides, for whom this was clearly not normal either. We were just in time for dinner and changed our wet clothes for something warmer. The briefing for the others for the next day was briefly summarized: "it will still snow all night, we can try to reach high camp, but the summit is impossible, maybe in 5 days." The others had many questions and asked for solutions, but for us it was okay, we had enjoyed the snow hike, but it wasn't worth taking so much risk.We ended the evening with a board game with one of the two Belgian couples and went to bed around 10 pm. A little disappointed, we really wanted to reach that peak of +6000, but especially also with a proud and satisfied feeling about our adventure in the snow, that we went off on our own three. It was really exciting and cool!