Bolivia · Departamento de Oruro
Where to Stay in Oruro, Departamento de Oruro
Oruro is a mining city high on the Bolivian Altiplano, famous for a great carnival of dancing devils.
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Where to stay in Oruro
The right area depends on your trip — here's what each neighbourhood is best for.
In Oruro the question is simply how near the main plaza you want to sleep. The streets around the main plaza keep the cathedral, the museums, and the market within a walk, and staying downtown suits anyone here for the city. The plaza is quiet in the thin cold air.
Rooms sit near the square and shrine. Out toward the station and the edges, the town spreads into plainer streets. A room away from the centre trades the plaza for parking, space, and an easy way to the trains and the road.
The bare plateau opens flat past the town. If you want the shrine and the museums, stay in the centre; if you want the road, take a room outside. Either way, the carnival city is close at hand.
About Oruro
Oruro is known for its wild carnival.
What is Oruro known for?
Each year the mining city erupts in the Carnival of Oruro, a huge procession of masked devils dancing the Diablada in honour of the Virgin of the Mineshaft, the patroness of the miners. A shrine to her crowns the hill above the town. Devils and silver mark the city.
What are the main landmarks in Oruro?
The shrine of the Virgin crowns the hill above Oruro. The sanctuary of the Virgen del Socavón, patroness of the miners, looks down on the city, the heart of the great carnival, at the mouth of an old mine. Museums hold the masks and the mines.
The Museo Nacional Antropológico keeps the devil masks of the Diablada, while the cathedral and the Conchupata Lighthouse mark the old town.
What is the history of Oruro?
Oruro rose on the silver and tin of the mountains. The Spanish founded the city in the seventeenth century to work the rich lodes of the high sierra, and centuries later it became the tin capital of Bolivia, its mines making men like the baron Patiño some of the richest in the world. The mines drove everything.
Thousands of miners toiled underground on the cold plateau, and they prayed to the Virgin of the Mineshaft, the Virgen del Socavón, for protection in the dark. Out of the mines came a great carnival. The miners' devotion and the old Andean dances grew together into the Carnival of Oruro, a vast procession in which masked dancers perform the Diablada, the dance of devils, before the shrine of the Virgin.
In time the tin ran out. The great mines closed and the city grew poorer, but the carnival only grew grander, drawing crowds from across the world. The festival was later named a treasure of the world.
Oruro still dances its devils high on the Altiplano.
Where is Oruro?
Oruro lies high on the windswept Altiplano. The city sits over three and a half thousand metres up on the bare Bolivian plateau, ringed by dry hills and salt flats, with shallow Lake Uru Uru to the south. Thin cold air hangs over the plain.
The empty Altiplano stretches wide beyond.
What is the climate of Oruro?
Oruro has a cold, dry highland climate. The great altitude keeps the city cold all year, with freezing nights and thin sun, and rain comes only in a short summer season. Icy winds sweep the bare plateau.
The high plain stays harsh and dry.
How do you get to Oruro?
Oruro lies on the high road across the Bolivian Altiplano. Rail lines and highways run to it between La Paz and the salt flats of the south, and buses cross the plateau in every direction. A famous tourist train sets out for Uyuni from here.
Most arrive by road across the high plain.
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Updated August 2026