Basilica of San Francisco and the Witches' Market (El Mercado de las Brujas)

At the base of the central canyon where colonial Spanish La Paz met the indigenous Aymara quarters on the opposite bank of the Choqueyapu River (now culverted beneath Avenida Mariscal Santa Cruz), Plaza San Francisco is the busiest civic crossroads in the city. From its stone atrium, cobbled streets climb sharply uphill into the Rosario district, home to El Mercado de las Brujas (The Witches' Market). Pair this walk with our 3-day La Paz itinerary and Calle Jaen guide.

Basilica and Convent of San Francisco (1548-1784)

Founded in 1548 by Fray Francisco de los Angeles Morales just months after the establishment of La Paz, the original sixteenth-century Franciscan church collapsed under an extraordinary snowfall around 1610. Reconstructed entirely of pale golden-grey Viacha stone between 1743 and 1753 and consecrated on 23 April 1784 (with its single square bell tower added in 1885), the Basilica Menor de San Francisco is one of South America's supreme monuments of Mestizo Baroque (Andean Baroque) architecture.

• Reading the Mestizo Baroque stone facade: Rather than European saints alone, indigenous Aymara stonecarvers chiselled the portal columns and friezes with exuberant native flora and fauna from the highlands and the Yungas: tropical papayas, chirimoyas, pine cones, pumas, monkeys, long-tailed macaws, and anthropomorphised Pachamama masks sprouting scrolling grapevines.

Convent Cloisters and Bell-Tower Roof Walk

Entering the adjacent Museo Centro Cultural San Francisco leads through two-storey stone cloisters framed by ancient cedar choir stalls and subterranean crypts before emerging directly onto the vaulted stone roof and bell tower for a close-up view across the canyon.

El Mercado de las Brujas (The Witches' Market) on Calle Linares

Stepping out of the basilica and climbing two blocks up steep Calle Sagarnaga brings you onto cobbled Calle Linares, Calle Jimenez, and Calle Santa Cruz, officially recognised in 2019 as Intangible Cultural Heritage of La Paz. Here, Aymara women known as chifreras, dressed in multi-layered pleated pollera skirts, embroidered shawls, and bowler hats, and traditional spiritual healers known as yatiris (identifiable by their dark felt hats and handwoven chuspa coca bags) tend open-front apothecaries of Andean ritual life.

Chifreras, Yatiris and Pachamama Offerings

Baskets overflow with dried medicinal herbs such as retama and wira wira, aromatic copal resin, carved soapstone talismans (illas) shaped like couples, houses, or frogs to attract prosperity, colourful sugar plaques for assembling mesas blancas (burnt ritual offerings presented to Pachamama, Mother Earth, especially throughout the sacred month of August), and dried llama foetuses (sullus) collected from natural miscarriages on the Altiplano and buried beneath the cornerstone of almost every new Bolivian home or business as a protective offering to Pachamama. Along neighbouring Calle Sagarnaga, dozens of workshops also sell soft baby-alpaca knitwear, handwoven aguayo textiles, and charango lutes.