The Bolivian Review

My view of Bolivia after 35 days:

I'm very fond of Bolivia. The people were warm, friendly and very laid back. The openness and generosity of the Bolivianos was refreshing and left me with an innocent feeling that the world is full of nice people.

My stop on the southern shores of Titicaca took me to one of the most beautiful places that I've seen on my trip. The lake there is populated with small islands. Snow capped mountains line the horizon beyond the distant shores, and the nearby shores are unspoilt and dotted with rowing boats for line fishing.

Bolivia is often termed a developing country, but the feeling that I got is that the country, under the current leadership, does not strive for European style development. Things will happen slowly and with the interests of the people in mind and with small steps into industrial implementations. I wouldn't want to see Bolivia change too significantly. That's not just a tourist ignoring local needs to ensure that his playground remains different to home. I'd love the opportunity to stay in Tupiza or on the shores of Titicaca as they are today for an extended period. Yes, I think that better schools and medical facilities will help most Bolivians but those can be brought in without selling the salt flats or other land to external mining companies that have purely financial interests in projects. Evo Morales says that he wants to develop such resources from within, and whilst that is difficult and takes time to get a return on, the long term benefits for the country should be significant.

Most Bolivians look content. The workmen on the roads all say hello, and more than one asked how cycling on their new road was. There is a pride in work done. Nearly half of the road workers were women. Equality is here. The locals in the small towns and villages welcomed me with broad genuine smiles and, typical for rural communities in most countries, the people had time to talk and took an interest in the new guy passing through their town. There were a few people who looked stunned at the bike packed with bags coming along their mountain path, but even those folks, staring intensely, were polite and said hello and gave a wave.

I stayed in hotels, hostels and people's spare rooms. The people in the villages would go to some effort to find accommodation when asked and I got a lengthy interview from a lady in a shop for what turned out to be a garden shed. That may have meant that I failed the interview for the bedroom, but I like to think that I passed an interview for the shed. I just don't know which is so.

Bolivia has the best toilet seats in the world. They are plastic, but they are cushioned. Wipe clean, but have a bit of give like your sofa cusion. Everything else in the bathroom, especially the plumbing, is the most rickety that I've ever seen. Even the comfortable seat does not make a Bolivian khazi a place to linger.

A country should know what it is good at. Aside from bum friendly seats, Bolivia is outstanding with curtain rails. I stayed in places that seemed to be almost booby trapped, the window fell out of the hinges when opened, the room doors often did not lock 'people don't steal things around here' was said by more than one hostal owner, and seemed to be true. The shower heaters in the shower head were connected to the mains with bare wires that were attached to the walls in a way that made a wayward stretch of my arms potentially fatal. The water and electricity sometimes did not work at all, but every room always had not just curtains, but a perfectly functioning curtain rail with an intact pull cord.

I got quite well fed from the north to the south. Meal times are very specific outside of the big towns. Lunch is around 12pm to 1pm. Dinner is 6pm to 7pm. It the small towns there are only typically one or two places to eat. There is no menu to look at and you ask for almuerzo at lunchtime or cena at dinner time and you are brought whatever meal was cooked for the town on that occasion. Almuerzo costs 10 bolivianos (one British pound) in most small towns, and for that you get soup to start. Then rice, potatoes and either a piece of chicken or beef. It's a filling meal. The cooking is done once for all on a big stove in order to preserve fuel, and is hottest closer to 12 o'clock. Dinner is similarly good, filling and lacking in choice. Darkness fell by 7pm and mostly dinner servings were finished by then and the towns quietened as people went to bed. It's a natural life, getting up at sunrise and going to bed at sunset, and fits well with a daylight cyclist.

There are good fruit market stalls in most towns with fresh mangos, bananas, limes, apples and oranges usually available.

The bread is so so. Functional when fresh. The centre seems to collapse after a day though to leave a hole. I typically filled the hole with ham and cheese. The ham is typically heavily processed and not fresh from the many piglettes that were seen in the countryside, but tasty enough to make a decent sandwich.

There are no supermarkets outside of the cities. There is not an excess of food in the towns. The shops are small, and there is limited fresh food. The thing that I missed most was fresh milk. UHT milk is available, but that just doesn't taste good.

Bolivia has decent roads connecting the big cities (La Paz to Oruro) but very bumpy roads to the smaller Andean towns. The bumpy roads fit perfectly with the mountain scenery. The roads are not ideal for getting around quickly, on a bike or in a car, but the low traffic volumes and beautiful scenery make slow cycling a joy. I moved along having the whole road to myself, maybe seeing no more than 10 vehicles per day for a few days at a time.

I saw two other cyclists in Bolivia. Not many at all. I saw a few tourists in La Paz, Oruro and around the salt flats, but a low number in total. I was rather surprised at that given just how appealing I found Bolivia.