Bolivia's red canyon country — Butch Cassidy's last ride through one of South America's most cinematic landscapes
Tupiza in southern Bolivia's Chichas region sits in a valley of extraordinary red and ochre canyons, eroded badlands, and towering spires of volcanic rock — a landscape more American Southwest than Andean altiplano. The town is famous internationally as the staging point for Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid's final years: the outlaws operated in this region in the early 1900s before their deaths (disputed location, but the official Bolivian account places the shootout in Tupiza's surroundings). Riding or hiking into the quebradas (gorges) around town — El Cañón, Quebrada Palmira, the format…
Tupiza developed in the colonial period as a silver-mining supply centre for the Potosí mining complex. Its isolation in the southern cordillera made it a natural refuge for outlaws and dissidents — Che Guevara's guerrilla campaign's final weeks also played out in the broader region (though his capture was in La Higuera, further north). The region's indigenous population is predominantly Chichas, one of the Andean groups that maintained significant autonomy under Inca and early Spanish rule.