Police Capt Gonzalo Carrasco said that another 24 people, most of them foreigners, were injured and being treated in hospitals in Oruro, the closest big city.
Carrasco said the accident occurred yesterday about 290 kilometres south of the capital.
He said the foreigners included an Australian, two Swiss, two Italians and a Peruvian and that two of the foreigners could not immediately be identified.
The fatal Bolivian victims included the bus driver. Carrasco said the injured included Germans, Italians, Swiss, Canadians, Chileans, Peruvians and an Indian.