Are you planning
a trip overseas this summer or fall? Or are you considering going to the
Olympics in Rio in 2016 and want to travel around South America?
If you’re in the mood to learn a little
history and to see a different culture, consider Bolivia.
The markets
of La Paz, including the Witches’ Market, are a blur of color. Native women
with black bowler hats and brightly colored clothes hawk their wares. Things
for sale include big (a yard across) plastic bags in red, yellow, and blue
filled with popped corn, trinkets, baskets, and pottery. The most interesting items
were llama fetuses, gifts to the gods. (Yes, Bolivia is officially a Catholic
country, but the “old gods” haven’t been forgotten.) I think the best view of the
market is from the roof of Iglesia de San Francisco.
Potosí
and nearby mountain, Cerro Rico
(the source of much of the silver that built the Spanish empire in the 1500s
and 1600s) deserve to be a UNESCO World Heritage site. But be warned, the price
of extracting all the silver in term of loss of human lives and ecological
damage is staggering.
If you’re looking for
natural wonders, consider Bolivia.
The
Valley of the Moon (10 km from downtown La Paz) is eerily stark and
beautiful with thousands of rock spires, but not as colorful as Bryce Canyon in
Utah.
Lake
Titicaca is considered
the highest navigable lake in the world (elevation 12,507 feet). Remember the
pictures of reed boats on Lake Titicaca in your fifth grade geography book. Indigenous
people still live there on floating islands they create from reeds.
Salar
de Uyuni is a 100-times the
size of Bonneville Salt Flats, and the largest source of lithium in the world.
Downsides of travel to
Bolivia
Altitude
sickness can be a problem. (The altitude in Potosí is 13,420 ft, and in La Paz
is 12,000 ft). The U.S. Centers for Disease Control recommends travelers to
Bolivia be vaccinated for typhoid and Hepatitis A. It is unwise in Bolivia to
drink tap water, eat raw fruits and vegetables that you didn’t peel and wash
yourself, or eat any food sold by street vendors.
If travel to Bolivia sounds too tough,
read Ignore the Pain.
In Ignore the Pain, Sara Almquist,
a public health consultant, is your guide to Bolivia. Of course, her view of the
Witches Market and Iglesia de San Francisco in La Paz might be a little
different that that of the average tourist because someone, determined to kill
her, is chasing her across the church’s roof. The descriptions of the roof and
the markets below are realistic (as I saw them while walking at a leisurely
pace).
Because Sara is an epidemiologist consultant for
USAID (United States Agency for International Development), you’ll learn a lot
about child health and pollution problems in Bolivia. But you won’t have Sara’s
problems. She can’t decide
which of her new colleagues to trust as she learns too much about the movement
of coca from Bolivia to the U.S. and the dangerous working conditions in the silver
mines of Potosí. Of course, you’ll only vicariously enjoy the attentions of the
roguish Xave Zack, too.
Better yet, read Ignore the Pain before you travel to Bolivia.
Ignore
the Pain
is available at Amazon: http://amzn.com/1610091310
Kindle:
B00HOODVTW
