LA PAZ, Bolivia -- Most airports are essentially the same. Customs, baggage claim, people waiting with signs. This airport was no different, yet, stepping off the plane at more than 13,000 feet, I knew immediately and definitively that I was in a completely different country.

Dado Galdieri, Associated Press Bolivian indigenous Aymara fishermen line up their boats to string an electrical cable to an island in Lake Titicaca. Click photo for larger image. If you go: Bolivia Bolivia's government tourist office Web site, www.turismobolivia.bo, provides plenty of useful accommodations, attractions and transportation information in English as well as Spanish. American Airlines and Lloyd Aereo Boliviano both fly from Miami to Bolivia about once a day, through Santa Cruz, Bolivia. Note: Bolivia has been hit with months of heavy rains that have sparked devastating flooding, mostly in the eastern lowlands. Check on the status of the regions you plan to visit before traveling there.

It's the air -- or lack of it -- that strikes you even before you've emerged from the airplane tunnel, makes you take deep, unproductive breaths and feel tired and fuzzy, dizzy and nauseous.

Sometimes the reaction is more dramatic. Some visitors, fancying themselves in top-notch physical condition, go out jogging on their first days in the country, only to spend the rest of their journey dragging an oxygen tank wherever they go. Worse, they can end up hospitalized with swollen brains or fluid in the lungs.

I hoped I wouldn't join that list. I didn't want anything to hinder my enjoyment of the spectacular sights on my first trip to Bolivia.

More than a mere sightseeing tour, this was a rendezvous with my boyfriend, David, who had been born and raised in Bolivia's capital city, La Paz.

The international airport is actually located in La Paz's sister city of El Alto, which sits on the edge of the altiplano, an enormous, 13,000-foot-high plateau. La Paz spills into the valley below, so to reach David's family home, we started a steep descent into the canyon. Suddenly, we rounded a bend that exposed the whole city. In the darkness, the city's lights looked like someone had dumped stars into the valley.

We inched our vehicle through the center of town, where a mayhem of cars and minibuses moved in far more directions than the roads recommended. Although it was late, there were hundreds of people out on the street, and nearly half were dressed in traditional indigenous garments, something I had not expected in a capital city.

The fashion had been introduced during the culture clash with the Spanish in the 16th century. The bowler hats, shawls and thick layering of silk skirts made it anyone's guess how big the woman inside really was. Men and women alike had colorful blankets -- aguayos -- tied to their backs, packing everything from their children to television boxes. When we got home, my boyfriend's mother showed me to my room and gave me some sorojchi pills that were supposed to help with the altitude.

A tank of oxygen lurked in the corner, just in case.

La Paz

Although I was eager to see the sights, David's family told me it was better to take at least a day to relax. We spent most of our acclimation day in the sunny yard -- walled like every other house in town -- and in the kitchen. We devoured tropical fruits and Bolivian food, especially giant corn, quinoa, and dried (then rehydrated) potatoes. Pati, the tiny cook, wore two long pigtails down her back and made sure we were never in want. Once, while we ate, David asked her to teach us some words in Aymara. (Waliki tata roughly translates "What's up, papa?") and she laughed good-naturedly at his attempts, flashing a gilded front tooth.

The constant service astonished me. I could hardly make a trip to the bathroom without finding the bed made when I returned.

When we felt sufficiently acclimatized, we toured the city. Our first stop was the president's office in the central square, Plaza Murillo, where we noticed a large crowd gathered across the street, tenderly held back by police officers with riot shields.

Crossing the street to investigate (Why no one stopped us is still beyond me), we reached the front door of the building just as the vice president and a cloud of reporters walked out the front door and into a waiting Chevrolet Blazer. It sped off.

"Out to lunch," we predicted.

We walked down Calle Comercio, the main commercial avenue, until we reached another square that was dominated by the San Francisco cathedral. Inside, the place looked like a pirate's treasure trove, encrusted in gold and jewels. We followed a stone stairwell that led up to the roof and the bell tower. From there, we ate up spectacular views of the chaotic city nestled into a red-walled canyon.

Not for too long, though. Thin air makes for fast sunburn, so we hurried to our next destination. We took a minibus up the steep hill where the markets were located. In our minibus -- as in most -- a small boy was hired to hang out the sliding door and yell the bus' destinations with the same speed and distinctiveness as an auctioneer: "plzamur-rillocallecomerciosanfranciscocementaaaario, plazamurrillo ..."

We got out at the top of the hill so we could save our breath and sightsee on the downhill, walking past the little shops and street stands that sell almost everything -- soccer jerseys, rice, DVD players, furniture, strange fruits I'd never seen before, the indigenous skirts and hats and shoes, knitted alpaca wool ponchos, and, of course, llama fetuses, dried for magic purposes and sold on Calle de las Brujas, the Witches' Market.

Lake Titicaca

There are plenty of side trips out of La Paz that highlight distinctive landscapes only a few hours away. Our first excursion took us to the enormous high-altitude Lake Titicaca.

	Dado Galdieri, Associated Press Indigenous people dressed in carnival costumes take part in a street party on the outskirts of La Paz. Click photo for larger image.

To get there, we drove about two hours to the east, starting up a treacherously steep road to El Alto. For a stretch at the far side of that city, the paved road ended and we drove the diesel through a long, walled corridor of rocks and dry reddish dirt. Except for the roving bands of dogs, the terrain looked exactly like Mars.

Then we pulled onto a smooth two-lane road that led us into nearly untouched altiplano, flat and almost deserted for miles, a scene that screamed, "Life is hard here." Scatterings of walled adobe houses, people tending cows and little straw-roofed huts added to the desolate beauty and were the only signs of human life between our car and the magnificent mountains on all sides. Giant prickly snowcaps rose to more than 18,000 feet to the right of the car and smaller, rounder mountains hung to the left.

In what seemed like no time at all, we stepped out of the truck into thin, fresh air at a little adobe house 100 yards from Lake Titicaca's edge. Llamas and their more delicate cousins, the vicunas, were tethered to the dry ground outside.

Later, our host's housekeeper rowed us out into the lake in a colorful wooden boat. When tightly bound together, he told us, the long dark green reeds that poked out of the water all around us were used to make boats that were sturdy enough to make trips all the way to Asia. He pulled a reed out of the water and pointed out the edible white part at the bottom.

"Probalo," he said, "Try it."

Disregarding the most rudimentary rules of Third World travel -- don't drink the water and don't eat raw produce -- we gave the reeds a try. They were satisfyingly crisp with a hint of sweetness.

Rio Selva

From the bird's eye view, it's probably less than 30 miles from La Paz to Rio Selva Hotel, a jungle resort in the coca growing Yungas region. Because the road climbs, dips, and contorts with the contours of the Andes, the trip is about 60 miles. And, because the road is treacherous, narrow and was still being finished, it took a full four hours for our minibus driver to navigate to our destination.

It could be worse. The road we took aims to replace a mountain thruway that has been called the most dangerous road in the world. So high in the Andes, it's easy to forget that Bolivia is in the tropics.

As we rapidly descended hundreds of feet, we remembered. The thicker air let us breath easier while we watched the mountains become green and lush before our eyes.

The hotel was a jungle in itself, with wooden bridges, plants everywhere, spiral staircases leading to game rooms, hammocks at every corner, bars and restaurants at every turn, cabins, a tiny soccer field, volleyball court (with its resident tortoise), water gardens, parrots, and pool after pool. I suspected that building codes just don't exist in the middle of nowhere.

We played in the river, were eaten by mosquitoes (or more exotic jungle insects) and went on a nature hike with a local guide, passing birds, frogs, butterflies, a hanging bridge, crevices and waterfalls.

In the afternoon, we rode back to La Paz, and a few days later, I was back on an airplane heading out of El Alto. In my pressurized cabin, I pressed my face against the window and gawked at the city and the snow-capped Andes as seen from above, struck yet again by how truly incredible it was that a city had been built in such an impossible-to-build place.

And they didn't even have oxygen tanks then.