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Bolivia Travel Guides
Tourist, Book, Tour, Hotel, Restaurant

ITEM

NAME AND DESCRIPTION OF TRAVEL GUIDE

CODE

PRICE

1.

Bolivia Travel Guide.  Lonely Planet Publications.

LONE

$24.95
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$5.50
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$12.50
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delivery

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         Language Books, Cassettes, and Dictionaries  **

2.

Bolivia Handbook.  Footprint.  464 pages.  Size 4¾”x8¼”.  Includes 32 color photos and 46 maps.

Bolivia is weird.  Everything about this land-locked country in the heart of South America is out of the ordinary - like the surreal landscapes of Gabriel García Márquez or Isabel Allende.  It's the kind of place where you start taking the strangest things for granted.  Like sitting next to an alligator on a bus, sharing a taxi with a pile of llama fetuses, or waiting behind a group of piglets at the check-in desk. In Bolivia, it seems, pigs really do fly.

   Totally packed with up-to-date information including highlights of virtually every town and site.  Also includes money-saving tips, advice on staying healthy, and anecdotes on local history, culture, customs, and etiquette.  Indispensable!

FOOT

$24.95
+
$5.50
p&h
or
$12.50
foreign
delivery

**  Click Here!  to order the Bolivia Travel Guides of your choice!  **

3.

Bolivia Travel Guide.  Rough Guide edition.  Footprint.  528 pages.  Size 5”x8”.

• Practical advice on exploring remote Andean ranges and Amazonian rainforests.

• Well-informed coverage of indigenous culture, religion, wildlife and the environment.

• Candid reviews of Bolivia’s jungle lodges and colonial mansions.

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 meters; 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 neighboring 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 neighbors. 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.
 

ROUG

$24.95
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$5.50
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$12.50
foreign
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**  Click Here! to order the Bolivia Travel Guides of your choice!  **

4.

Bolivia Culture Shock!  Graphic Arts Center Publishing Company.  Size 5¼”x7¾”.  Includes a cultural quiz and glossary.

With this guide, you’ll never feel intimidated and awkward about the customs and etiquette of Bolivia.  You’ll learn to see beyond the stereotypes and misinformation that often precede a visit to this foreign land.  Whether you plan to stay for a week or a year, you’ll benefit from an understanding of such topics as the rules of driving and monetary systems, religious practices, and social customs.  There are tips on political traditions, building friendships and business relationships.  Packed with practical, accurate, and fun-to-read information, this guide will make you feel ‘right at home’ even before you go.

Review:  "When I learned I would be moving to La Paz for a year, I searched for a book that would provide more insight on the cultural and daily realities of life in Bolivia than guidebooks usually provide. This was just the right book.

   While it provides information that is very useful for soon-to-be residents (how to navigate the black markets to get household necessities; the fact that it costs $1500 for a phone number, so rent an apartment that already has one!), I think it is also a great supplement to the guidebooks for any traveller who will be spending a decent amount of time in Bolivia and wants to understand more about the country than just the history and the sights.

   The author describes typical economic and social lives of Bolivians, outlines current social and political issues, gives cultural tips on interacting with Bolivians, and provides qualitative, highlights-type descriptions of some of the sights in La Paz and Bolivia.  It is very readable and entertaining, so it makes a good introductory, overview book.

   A good guidebook may have lots of the same information somewhere in there, but it has a "thoroughness" job to do, making it less fun and easy to read  (The Lonely Planet Guide to Bolivia is excellent, though.)  If the other Culture Shock series books are as good, I will read them before travelling to other South American countries."

CULT

$13.95
+
$4.50
p&h
or
$10.50
foreign
delivery