Isolated from the ocean since its coastline was annexed by Chile in 1880, Bolivia is South America’s least known and least visited republic.

Land-locked Bolivia is a stunningly beautiful country characterised by dramatic extremes.

North of La Paz, a single road climbs to the snow line before plunging into the tropical montane forests of the Yungas.

South across the high, barren plain known as the altiplano, the world’s highest city lies beneath the mountain of silver which for three centuries financed the royal courts of Europe and made colonial Potosí the richest place in the world.

“Living culture and natural beauty: A new world of discovery.”

At Uyuni, seemingly endless salt pans nourished by the receding waters of Lake Titicaca stretch, blindingly white, beyond the horizon, until they are flooded by seasonal rainfall to become a great mirror reflecting the sky.

In northern Bolivia the vast, unexplored forests of the Amazon basin form the nation’s frontiers with Peru and Brazil, and are home to uncontacted indigenous peoples, while to the west the towering Cordillera Real forms a wall of ice and rock, with six peaks soaring to over 6,000 metres (almost 20,000 feet).