Hello!
I would like to make a two week trip to La Paz, and I will be flying in from a city that is nearly at sea level elevation.
I am concerned that the altitude change might be too much too handle. I understand that it will take a few days to acclimatize, and that I will probably experience "normal" altitude sickness initially.
But how long will these symptoms last? Will it ruin my trip? Should I reconsider visiting a different city?
Thanks in advance!
-n
Much of La Paz is in a valley which has the advantage of being slightly lower than the alitplano but it always seems that walking from A to B involves going up and down rather that being on the straight and level but at a higher altitude like up in El Alto, which can be pretty tiring until you get used to the altitude. How long it takes to get used to the altitude is different for each individual so hard to answer, age, fitness and health certainly play a part.
Most people worry themselves into altitude sickness. They do not have it, but start panicking thinking they have the symptoms and hyperventilating because they are in an area at risk of having it.
The givens are that you will be out off breath easier, you will find it much harder to walk up hills.
In La Paz, I cannot see it ruining your holiday. Do not try to pack in much physical activity on the first day, but walking to see stuff is okay.
Have a great trip
Psychological , my foot . Lot of people get AMS on direct flyins , that's why for example CDC recommends medicating in advance ( quote strongly recommended unquote ) with Diamox. Two percent of Chinese soldiers flying in to Lhasa , same altitude , start to develop pulmonary edema. I see a lot of it on a regular basis in Leh @ 3500 meters. For the large majority this is hangover country : many get headaches , some nausea , a few vomiting. Apart from medicating - see a travel doc - the easiest minimum approach is to spend a bit more and get a hotel in the lower end of La Paz , which places you a couple of hundred meters lower than Cusco for example.
Best chance of having more days at near full capacity is to make a internediate stop at 2000+ meters : lots of pre-acclimatization oppportunities for those living in western US , or Mexico City , Quito etc enroute from Europe etc.
...hard to answer, age, fitness and health certainly play a part
Fitness has no relation to AMS , age has : the 50+ group cope better , on the average.
My opinion is less professionally-qualified than Vistet's , but based on many year's experience of La Paz (including for some time responsibility for the well-being of official visitors) I would summarize as follows:
The standard recommendation in the outfit I worked for was that all arrivals from sea level should rest for the first 24 hours. This recommendation was usually ignored, for reasons of time. Additional recommendations were to eat little in the evening, drink plenty of water but no alcohol. And to sleep unaccompanied.
Most (indeed almost all) arrivals in La Paz from sea level experienced mild AMS (please excuse paradox) for a day or two - breathlessness walking even slightly uphill, a headache, irregular sleeping patterns (check out "Cheyne-Stokes Breathing"). However, usually this was no more than an inconvenience for a couple of days.
Vistet is quite right in saying that age and fitness are irrelevant (well, unless the person has heart problems or is suffering from the consequences of heavy smoking, for instance). I recall overweight people in their 50's and 60's who were less affected than much younger people.
I have seen a small percentage where symptoms were more acute. This should be taken seriously, and immediate descent to a lower altitude is the solution.
Although this is difficult to demonstrate objectively, I do think that in some cases there was a psychological element where someone arrived expecting to be seriously ill and had his or her fears apparently confirmed by the appearance of the mild symptoms which are normal.
Another contributing factor is that many travellers arrive at El Alto airport either in the wee small hours of the night or at 6 a.m. after an overnight flight from Miami. On top of that, if arriving from Europe they are jet-lagged. So even without altitude, they probably feel below par (a more colourful term might invite the attention of the moderators!) .
Of course if you were to stop over for a night somewhere a bit lower than La Paz (Bogota, for instance) it would help acclimatization, but on the whole IMO there's no need to worry overmuch. Most visitors seem to survive! If you look over this forum, for instance, you will see that threads on the subject start with enquiries from posters who have had no experience of high altitude. I don't recall many saying that they nearly died and had to be evacuated.
My advice for the Europeans : ** the jetlag , you'll be better/less worse off with a long flight equivalent to around 2000 meters altitude ( at least in "old" airplanes ) immediately before landing in La Paz.
I don't recall many saying that they nearly died and had to be evacuated.
The classic "none of the survivors complaining" ? The net is a poor medium for sharing experiences that people don't want to be reminded of. I've actually seen ( and carried ) a person who was close to dying in a lot more extreme situation , and he never returned to the scene or shared his experience on the web afaik . I 'd expect that to be fairly typical .
I would concur overall with threeshires assessment - the vast majority of people are find, just suffering from the usual headache, breathlessness etc A handful react badly and need to take the reaction seriously and go to lower altitudes immediately. This is based on dealing with tens of thousands of tourists over the years.
Id also agree that age and fitness are not indicators of how you would react. Regarding it being physiological , well mostly no but certainly in some cases. I have seen a guy in one of the hostels get really panicky and trouble breathing saying it was the altitude etc. He recovered soon after being given an oxygen mask to wear - but the oxygen cylinder he was using was actually empty. I just think that calmed him down and enabled him to breath normally again.