Do
- be careful at all times, Bolivia
is a beautiful country but not always that safe,
- check up to date travel advice
(www.minbuza.nl
or www.fco.gov.uk);
- keep informed about strikes, they will screw up any tight
schedule;
- visit the high city of La Paz. If you want to book a tour
or trainride to Uyuni we
-
can recommend Turisbus (www.travelperubolivia.com).
Nice places to drink or eat
-
are Pepe's Coffee Bar,Alexander Coffee and Cafe Sol y Luna.
Go to the Coca
-
Museum in La Paz, it is very informative (www.cocamuseum.com);
- walk the Choro or Takesi trek when you have enough time,
we didn't walk the
-
treks but heard great stories about them. Be careful if
you walk them alone!
- visit Salar de Uyuni and the Southern Circuit. Take plenty
of warm clothes and a
-
good sleeping bag (imagine any cold whether and double the
freezing feeling).
-
Book your tour ahead, we went
with Andrea tours and were pleased (not to
-
expensive, good food and the cook and driver were not the
same person);
- sleep in hotel Julia, across the trainstation, they have
the best hot showers ever!
- go with the Dinotruck if you want
to visit the mines in Potosi but not too deep.
-
They offer a tour of 3 hours and they leave two or three
times a day from the
-
main square;
- arrange a long-distance taxi, at your hotel or a touroperator,
from Saimapata to
-
Santa Cruz or Potosi to Sucre. Quick transportation and
not too expensive;
- spend a few days in the lovely city of Sucre and check
out Joyride cafe: a great
-
place to eat and the food is very good (including Dutch
food);
- take time to relax at Finca la Vispera in Samaipata. Friendly
owners, nice rooms
-
and splendid food (www.lavispera.org);
- make a day trip on the river Mamore and see pink dolphins
(we booked at Paraiso
-
tours, 6 de Agosto 138 street, Trinidad) but
afterwards don't stay too long in
-
Trinidad there's not much to do.
If you want to fly out book in advance, airplanes
-
are small (19 persons);
- stay at the nice hotel la Cúpula in Copacabana
(www.hotelcupula.com)
and book
-
a trip to the Island of the
Sun where you can make a great day hike.
Don't
-
underestimate the high altitude: take a few days to adjust
and drink coca tea
-
(mate de coca);
- go out late at night, take a cab;
- step in a cab with only 2 doors, already one passenger,
no signs or when the cab
-
driver approaches you. Ask around in your hotel which ones
are safe;
- ignore police precaution advice (we didn't experience
any kind of trouble, but
- heard
many stories of robbery, theft
and kidnapping, mainly in / around La
Paz);
- sit in the front cabin of the train from Oruro to Uyuni,
you will eat sand and get a
-
facial scrub;
- sleep at Avenida Hotel in Uyuni: no service, unfriendly
people, they cancel
-
reservations without notice and the rooms are extremely
cold with bad showers;
- expect to sleep on night buses, most chairs are only for
sitting even when the
-
are '(semi) cama';
- book your buses at tour operators if you want a cheaper
ride. Go to the
-
busstation, preferable the day you arrive at the station;
- visit Tihuanaco ruins if you have already seen ruins for
example in Peru, Mexico or
-
Guatemala;
- expect cheap internet at Copacabana;
- visit the dinotracks near Sucre if you want to see them
up close. We were the
-
last lucky ones,now you can't walk close to them anymore.
Take binoculars or ask
-
for them.
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