Pope arrives in Bolivia as part of his homecoming visit in Latin America

A T-33 jet escorted the papal plane on 8 July as the pontiff arrived in Bolivia on the second part of his three-country tour of Latin America.

Pope Francis was met at the airport by Bolivian President Evo Morales and praised Bolivia's social reforms to spread wealth. He urged the world not to view prosperity as material wealth, which he warned only breeds corruption and conflict.

Morales' strained relations with the Catholic Church have begun thawing under the Argentine-born pontiff's papacy, and Morales warmly embraced the pope seven years after denouncing the Church as "an instrument of domination".

Francis, Latin America's first pope, made back-to-back addresses in the thin air of La Paz, which sits in a bowl surrounded by mountain peaks, 4,000m above sea level, and showed no sign of suffering from altitude sickness.

First he spoke with Morales in the presidential palace and then walked next door for a brief reception in the cathedral. Thousands of people lined the roads and filled the square outside the cathedral to welcome the pope.

Aboard his flight from Ecuador, where he began his tour, the pope drank a tea meant to ward off illness, made of a mix of coca leaves, chamomile and anise seeds.