The Rough Guide To Bolivia (Rough Guides Main Series)

INTRODUCTION

Landlocked and isolated at the heart of South America, Bolivia encompasses everything that outsiders find most exotic and mysterious about that continent. Stretching from the majestic icebound peaks and bleak high-altitude deserts of the Andes to the exuberant rainforests and vast savannas of the Amazon basin, it embraces an astonishing range of landscapes and climates. The strangeness and variety of this natural environment are matched by the ethnic and cultural diversity of the country’s population: the majority of Bolivians are of indigenous descent, and the strength of Amerindian culture here is perhaps greater than anywhere else in Latin America.

Indeed, to think of Bolivia as part of "Latin" America at all is something of a misconception. Though three centuries of Spanish colonial rule have left their mark on the nation’s language, religion and architecture, this European influence is essentially no more than a thin veneer overlying indigenous cultural traditions that stretch back long before the conquest. Though superficially embracing the Catholic religion brought from Spain, many Bolivians are equally at home making offerings to the mountain gods of their ancestors or performing other strange rites, such as blessing motor vehicles with libations of alcohol. And although Spanish is the language of business and government, the streets of the capital buzz with the very different cadences of Aymara, one of more than thirty indigenous languages spoken across the country.

Geographically, Bolivia is dominated by the mighty Andes, the great mountain range that marches through the west of the country in two parallel chains, each studded with snowcapped peaks which soar to heights of over 6000 metres; between these two chains stretches the Altiplano, a bleak and virtually treeless plateau that has historically been home to most of Bolivia’s population, and whose barren and windswept expanses are perhaps the best-known image of the country. Northeast of the Altiplano, the Andes plunge abruptly down into the tropical rainforests and savannas of the Amazon lowlands, a seemingly endless wilderness crossed by a series of major rivers that flow north to the Brazilian border and beyond. East of the Altiplano, the Andes march down more gradually through a drier region of fertile highland valleys that give way eventually to the Eastern Lowlands, a vast and sparsely populated plain covered by a variety of ecosystems ranging from dense Amazonian rainforest in the north to the dry thornbrush and scrub of the Chaco to the south.

This immensely varied topography supports an extraordinary diversity of plant and animal life – the Parque Nacional Amboró, for example, is home to over 830 species of bird, more than the US and Canada combined – and new plant species continue to be identified every year. The country’s underdevelopment and lack of infrastructure have been a blessing in disguise for the environment, allowing vast wilderness areas to survive in a near-pristine condition and serve as home to a variety of wildlife, ranging from the stately condors that glide above the high Andes to the pink freshwater dolphins that frolic in the rivers of Amazonia.

Though it covers an area the size of France and Spain combined, Bolivia is home to fewer than nine million people, most of whom live in a handful of cities founded by the Spanish. Some of these, such as Potosí and Sucre, were once amongst the most important settlements in the Americas, but are now half-forgotten backwaters, basking in the memory of past glories and graced by some of the finest colonial architecture on the continent. Others, like La Paz and Santa Cruz, have grown enormously in recent decades as a result of mass migration from the countryside, and are now bustling commercial cities where traditional indigenous cultures collide with modern urban environments. Given all these attractions, it’s perhaps surprising that Bolivia remains one of South America’s least-visited countries. This is largely due to its very remoteness and inaccessibility: even from the capitals of neighbouring countries, Bolivia is a distant and peripheral land, cut off by towering mountain chains or endless expanses of forest and swamp. Ignorance, too, plays a part. Following a diplomatic slight in the nineteenth century, Britain’s Queen Victoria is said to have ordered the Royal Navy to bombard Bolivia’s capital; on learning the country was landlocked and the capital lay high in the mountains, she supposedly crossed its name from her map and declared, "Bolivia does not exist". Bolivians often cite this apocryphal anecdote to illustrate the outside world’s lack of knowledge about their country, and not without reason – over a century later, Victoria’s mistake was repeated by a US senator, who demanded an aircraft carrier be sent to Bolivia’s coast to enforce compliance with the War on Drugs, only to be told that Bolivia didn’t have a coastline. Amongst outsiders who have heard something of Bolivia, meanwhile, the country has a reputation for cocaine trafficking, military coups and chronic political instability. But though these clichéd images have some basis in reality, they obscure the fact that Bolivia is one of the safest countries in the region for travellers, and largely free of the violent crime that blights some of its neighbours. In addition, for those who make it here, the fact that Bolivia is not yet on the major tourist routes is an added advantage, since you’re unlikely to find yourself sharing the experience with more than a handful of other foreign visitors, whilst local attitudes have yet to be jaded by the impact of mass tourism.

James Read is an experienced travel writer and has both worked and traveled extensively. Read currently works for the BBC World Service as a writer and researcher. He is the coauthor of The Rough Guide to First-Time Latin America and contributed to both The Rough Guide to Central America and The Rough Guide to South America.