It seems almost every corner of La Paz is home to a church. An interview with Gastón A. Gallardo, Dean of Architecture at Universidad Mayor de San Andrés, opens my eyes to the history and design behind these incredible structures.

Iglesia de San Pedro

Date completed: 1790

Architect: Unknown

Description: On entering this church, the building seems strangely long and thin, a feature it retains from its Renaissance origins. The original church no longer stands, as it was burned down during an indigenous rebellion known as the siege of Túpac Katari. Perhaps the people who frequent the church are what gives it its charm. As I approached the building, I was greeted by a vivacious wedding scene, with a happy couple dancing to a full orchestra that included three guitars.

Iglesia de San Francisco

Date completed: Temple in 1784, tower in 1885

Architect: Unknown

Description: You can’t help but notice the gloom as you enter this magnificent church. Along the side walls, where windows would normally sit, are the statues of countless Saints. The façade has a particularly impressive design, so intricate that the more you look the more you see. In a style is known as Mestizo-Baroque, it features bunches of grapes and grotesque humanoid faces that appear to spew vines from their mouths. Like in the case of San Pedro, the original San Francisco church no longer stands. Its original building is often cited as the oldest church in the city, but it was destroyed by severe snowfalls.

Iglesia de San Agustín

Date completed: 1668

Architect: Unknown

Description: Fresh flowers and plaques of gratitude adorn the various Saints that line the walls of this church. Its exterior appearance, however, which is a twentieth century addition, does not give such a welcoming impression, with its discoloured plaster peeling from the walls and panels missing from the windows. This building is the only complete example of seventeenth century architecture in La Paz.

Iglesia de Santo Domingo

Date completed: Second half of the seventeenth century, main stone façade around 1760

Architect: the project was conceived by Francisco Jiménez de Sigüenza in 1609, the engineer Lanza remodelled the interior in the nineteenth century

Description: The partially crumbling exterior of this church lends a certain authenticity to its seventeenth-century construction. As you walk through the gates, you are greeted by ladies selling beautiful jewellery and candles. The decoration of the main stone façade, with its various parrots, grape vines and pomegranates, is in typical Mestizo style, based around the motifs of tropical flora and fauna. The inside of the church is particularly attractive, though it’s hard to pinpoint why. Perhaps it is the small organ placed proudly at the front, or maybe the vertical red and gold lines, decorating the pillars.

Catedral de La Paz

Date completed: Inaugurated in 1925. It has been continually adapted, most recently in 1989 when the two towers were built.

Architect: Many architects and engineers intervened, but the original design was created by Manuel Sanahuja

Description: ‘It’s unbelievable,’ Dean Gallardo tells me, outraged. ‘The towers were supposed to be taller [than the dome], but they made them from a single floor because of a lack of funding.’ To the untrained eye, this architectural shortcoming does not detract from the Catedral Metropolitana. Its beautiful stone pillars and huge doors are so artfully sculpted, that their engraved metal figures seem to come right out of their alcoves, forcing emotions onto the innocent passerby. The stained-glass window at the back depicts a group of people praying and a great light shining from angels in the sky. It strikes me at first that the people in prayer are all white-skinned, yet it is no surprise: the window was, after all, imported from Spain by the Europeans.

Iglesia de la Parroquia de Santa Rita

Date completed: 1970s

Architect: Peter Steffens

Description: I nearly walked past this interesting building because I was expecting to find a traditional stone church. Though very small, what I found makes up for its size with its unique character. With lumps and bumps and a cross that appears to be hanging in mid-air, this irregular structure is coloured simply with white and turquoise. Inside, the most distinctive feature is a set of cylindrical lights built into the ceiling. One has the outline of a dove, the other of Jesus. This church was nothing like what I had expected, but I was captivated by its unconventional design.

My Journey with a Taxista through La Paz

‘The secret to driving in Bolivia,’ Edgar says, streetlights illuminating his smile, ‘is thinking ahead.’ At that moment, his eyes catch sight of a family of tourists that foolheartedly takes the initiative to cross a three-lane road. After thirteen years of driving a taxi in La Paz and El Alto, Edgar Ramos Calderon’s steady hands keep the car perfectly straight as we lurch to a stop. Starting again, he chuckles and we crawl further into the heart of La Paz through its primary artery, El Prado, continuing our four-hour exploration of this intricate urban circulatory system.

The road system in La Paz is often without streetlights, street signs or enforced road rules; yet, the vehicles that clog its streets rarely collide with each other. Although their design might appear haphazard, the roads that connect the city's many zonas serve a necessary purpose for its bustling, expanding population: mobility. In a city with intimidating inclines, most find it taxing to get everywhere on foot.

Enter the taxista. Every day, Edgar, an eager conversationalist with tremendous patience and a laugh like home cooked dinner, drives the streets of La Paz ‘for as many hours as necessary.’ Subtly indicating the craftsmanship of professional drivers, he needs no map. He has no GPS to tell him exactly where a client's building might be, and the erratically-numbered addresses don't always help. Instead, he relies on a mental map of the city, built over his many years driving its avenidas, on a career of finding new ways to avoid traffic and get clients where they need to be as fast as possible.

The day before, I had asked Edgar to show me the city and all the ways he can navigate it. For as many hours as necessary. The sun slowly sets behind the tall buildings surrounding Plaza Avaroa as Edgar and I hustle to his taxi. He has parked it in the middle of the road to come fetch me from a café. Traffic dodged, butts in seats. I reach to buckle my seatbelt and notice that he does the same, in a rare instance of disaster-prevention that I hadn't seen a Bolivian driver exhibit until this point. We take off, cascading into the rush hour traffic like water.

First destination: El Cementerio, an epicenter of city traffic and commerce. After a slow climb uphill, we reach the first of La Paz’s many ferias, street markets that sell all manner of goods to the dense concentration of foot traffic surrounding our slow-moving taxi. Suddenly, Edgar makes an impulsive turn to the right, prompting the whistle of a traffic cop. In an instant, all the traffic is gone, and Edgar comments on the grid-like design of these streets: parallel and perpendicular avenidas that can be used to navigate El Centro in any direction. ‘Of course, if you get lost, just go downhill. Eventually you'll reach a plaza,’ he says calmly as children dart in front of the car.

We wind further upward and the air becomes noticeably fresher. More stars are visible. We pass a patch of trees on the left, and Edgar tells me about the monumentitos, gravestone-like sculptures carved slowly over decades by stonemason families. Eventually we reach Pura Pura, the tiny forest that oxygenates the air in the city. From here, La Paz is a smattering of lights and winding streets in the valley below.

After a brief and seemingly frivolous rest stop, we begin our zigzag through Villa Victoria and descend to the center of the city. Along the way, Edgar mentions the madrugada drunkards that dot the streets before dawn. He points at one street and then another, confidently declaring that he doesn't know their names. ‘But I know how to get here,’ he says, guessing he knows about 40% of all the street names in La Paz.

‘It's the clients who have taught me most about these streets,’ he explains, waving his hand toward the expanse of neon that awaits us at the bottom of the hill. In his thirteen years as a taxista, Edgar has driven through the many villas and barrios of La Paz, and has just as many tales to accompany them, including that of a phantom customer who disappeared from his cab one sleepy summer night. ‘Poof! Gone,’ he laughs, snapping his fingers. ‘It was then I knew that I needed a break from seven-day workweeks.’

We hit traffic. The glowing, honking lights we saw from above now surround us as we roll along El Prado, the main artery of transit in the city. When we reach Plaza San Francisco on our way to Zona Sur, Edgar tells me a story about pigeons dirtying his customers' heads. Entering Obrajes, he laments the existence of condominiums and luxury car dealerships. Climbing up to the aptly-named Alto Obrajes, he points out an Olympic-sized swimming pool in the shape of a giant Pringle. From the window of the Edgar’s taxi, I behold the city from a peak opposite of where we began in Sopocachi, as we continue what seems an infinitely wide circle around La Paz.

We hit cobblestone as the music hits my ears. In a small alley, a group of youths dances in unison to folkloric Andean music in front of an ice cream shop. As they practice their performance, a pack of shaggy, tongue-flapping wild dogs scurries around the car. Edgar muses on the respect he has for the city's many feral dogs, who, as he points out, ‘have an instinct to cross at just the right time. They don't hesitate,’ he tells me. And neither does he.

Edgar hangs a left, then a right, then another left, and suddenly we’re back at the neon-lighted bridge we crossed some time before. I try, for a while, to figure out how he managed to avoid the bumper-to-bumper traffic of El Prado that we had squeezed through earlier to humor my curiosity. I attempt my own map of the streets from memory, but I fail before he calmly turns a corner and delivers the cab unto Plaza Avaroa, where our journey began. Dumbfounded, I stare at Edgar’s face, which curls into a cheeky grin. He asks, ‘Where next?’

Edgar Ramos Calderon is available for hire for pickups and day trips in and around La Paz and El Alto. To request his services, call 65662889.

The Miniparques of El Alto

It's field trip day. The rare occasion when you and all your classmates get to leave the classroom and explore the world outside to learn from everything other than books and desks. You scramble up the wooden trunk of an elephant and your friends call to you from the disassembled bumblebee below that now looks like five blocks of astroturf.

On a pedestrian street near Mercado Satélite, the schoolchildren arrive like a flock of turkeys clad in sweater vests and khaki pants. Smiling, the flock scrambles into a line. Why? Because these miniparques are unlike any park they’ve ever seen. They’re shaped like animals, and have wheels for traveling hither and thither to different parts of El Alto.

Gathered around are the brains behind these mobile structures of fun: the members of COMPA Teatro Trono, a grassroots organization that promotes education through theater in El Alto. Standing with them are their partners, American and Bolivian university students from the International Design Clinic (IDC), a self-identified ‘guerrilla design’ collective that promotes ‘creative work with communities in need around the world.’ Together, in July of 2015, they created a space of joy.

One third of El Alto’s population is under the age of fourteen. According to the creators of Miniparques, most of the public spaces in the city do not cater to the imaginations of these playful children. Their idea was to create a park that did. The university students gave hundreds of children a blank piece of paper, encouraging them to draw the perfect park. The drawings had three elements in common: trees, the color green, and some notion of a slide.

It took the team three years to build these parks-in-a-cart. The two organizations used traditional welding techniques and local materials to construct their colorful playgrounds. The green astroturf body of the bumblebee can be arranged into other shapes, including something like a tree. The elephant, with a trunk of pastel-colored wood, provides something to slide down.

Ronald Grepe Crespo, a professor of architecture at Universidad Católica Boliviana San Pablo (UPB), worked with IDC on the project. ‘Most children were so curious,’ he recalls from the construction process, ‘but the adults just kept walking. Kids would stop and ask questions, or try to play on the structures.’

When the parks were finally unveiled, one group of schoolchildren ‘got in trouble with their teacher because they wanted to keep on playing,’ Crespo tells me.  The organizers observed that children love to climb on a slide, especially in ‘the wrong direction.’ The elephantine tobogán provides the most fundamental aspect of any playground — the thrill of climbing that which was not meant to be climbed.

It's Wednesday, midday. The sun is strong, but so is your imagination. You're a cowboy hot on the tail of a local outlaw, who in real life is your best friend, who is dressed like you, in school uniform. You run around, up and down the bumblebee's body, shoes clacking on the cobblestones. Above the hooting and hollering, you hear the call: ‘¡Niños, vengan aquí!’

In an instant, the fun deflates. Your six-shooters disappear and you dismount your steed when you hear the threats of detention. Suddenly, the best recess of your life is over.

The importance of play in a child's life is difficult to overstate. For the lucky children who experienced the parks-in-a-cart in July, as well as for those of the future, these pop-up miniparques provide an innovative way to exercise, play pretend, and bring the community of El Alto together. Especially when it involves elephants and bumblebees.

COMPA Teatro Trono continues to provide a safe space of learning for the children of El Alto, offering courses in mathematics and sciences to anyone committed enough to take three talleres del teatro, which are workshops that encourage teamwork and bravery through theatrical creativity. Right now, the Miniparques wait to be unveiled for another group to play with. To get involved, search COMPA Teatro Trono on Facebook or visit their home of operations in El Alto, just blocks from Mercado Satélite.