Reflections of Bolivia

Our 18 days in Bolivia seemed to fly past, probably because we saw many different landscapes and had a great time there. Our reflections are as follows:

• It's a very high country; the lowest altitude we were at was 2800m in Sucre and we were often in or around 4000m
• With height comes cold and it was especially at night with temperatures falling below freezing. However during the day when we had mainly clear blue skies it was warm in the sunshine
• The landscape is very beautiful, especially the salt flats, around Sucre and Lake Titicaca
• Although when you look closely there is a lot of litter all over the place especially in the built up areas 
• There is a lot of poverty with over 50% of people below the poverty line
• The local people, whilst not unfriendly, did not really engage with us "gringos" unless they were trying to sell us something
• The food was good, although there wasn't a great variety of local dishes but lots of vegetables plus the usual high number of pasta, pizza and Mexican restaurants
• Bolivian wine was "so-so" but the beer, especially Pacena was good
• Lots of "Artisan" craft markets everywhere selling very similar goods. If we were on vacation probably bought a couple of the fine quality rugs and blankets
• Even in La Paz we felt safe and we were happy to walk around at night where it was busy; the usual common sense rules of course always apply
• Tours aside, Bolivia is a very cheap place to visit, bus travel was only a few pounds for half a day journey (and the quality of the buses were in the main good), dinner for 2 was £10 to £15, and you could get good en suite accommodation with hot shower, clean bed and wifi for £30 to £35 per night
• Apart from Copacabana the wifi was OK, as always better in the morning as the bandwidth couldn't cope with the number of users on an evening
• Long distances, slow bus journeys (due to terrain and stopping in every village to drop off or collect locals) meant it took a while getting between places and in the end it did lead us to fly from Sucre to La Paz (although internal fares are very cheap compared to the UK and Europe)
• Whilst a smattering of key Spanish words and phrases helps, English was understood in most places we stayed at ("Spanglish" is alive and well!)