Bolivia: A Travel Destination With A Difference
Bolivia certainly isn’t your everyday tourist destination. In many respects it embodies the heart of South America. In what other country can you watch indigenous women with their bright traditional dresses and bowler hats, stunning tropical valleys and snow-capped peaks in a single day?
La Paz is sure to leave you breathless in more than one respect. At 4000m it is not only the world’s highest capital, it also has the world’s highest commercial airport, and nearby is the world’s highest ski resort. Driving into the city from the airport, you will feel like driving down the rim of an extinct volcano… The city is surrounded by snowy mountain tops all year round.
The witch market in La Paz is an experience you are not likely to soon forget. Here you can buy all sorts of witchcraft items, including a llama fetus which you can bury beneath your new house for good luck. A little further on is the vast open air market of 16 de Julio where you can buy everything from electronics to a 5 piece drum set or a wireless reading device.
Don’t leave La Paz without bringing a visit to the famous coca museum, depicting the history of coca farming in Bolivia. If you thought that coca was only used to produce cocain, you are in for a surprise. The indigenous people have been using it for centuries to make tea, for medicinal purposes and to chew as an antidote to altitude sickness.
You are most likely not aware that a certain soft drink used all over the world, not only contains the word coca in its name, but that it actually contained cocaine for many years. How much coca it really contained is sort of a trade secret, but it is known that this practice lasted deep into the 20th century.
If it’s possible, you should really try to attend La Paz’s biggest yearly festival, the festival of Gran Poder. To give you an indication of the size of this festival: the total number of participants during 2009 exceeded 30 000. It is truly a fantastic display of music, costumes and dance which lasts from early in the morning until deep into the night.
Should you be an avid skier and you have access to Alpine skiing equipment, you should consider taking a day trip to the nearby ski resort of Chacaltaya. At 5400m this is the world’s highest ski resort. We are now talking about the same height as that of Everest base camp, so unless you are totally acclimatised to the attitude, you will probably find that you can hardly breathe, never mind ski.
Tried Liveaboard diving?
Have you ever heard of the new holiday craze, “Liveaboard diving”? This has got to be one of the easiest holidays for people to book, just get yourself a plane ticket and book a yacht! What’s great about Liveaboard’s is that anyone can go, Families, singles or just couples.
Let’s find out what this term actually means? To put it plainly, just think of it as a high class boat holiday. This holiday you simply travel around on a luxury yacht, usually in a warm location, such as the Maldives. You can take the boat out to see and you quite simply live aboard the boat for the duration of your holiday. I was lucky enough to be taken on one of these holidays for a business trip. We ventured out to the Maldives where we hired a boat called the “Monsoon”, very fitting considering the location of the Maldives.
It was in my opinion that this was going to be less of a holiday and more of a business trip, but i don’t think that i could have been more wrong. So basically I managed out of two weeks, one day of work. There was no more business to be done now, and I was ordered to enjoy the holiday. Diving is one of my Forte’s and i have enjoyed it through my life, so I was in my element. Work and keeping professional couldn’t be more difficult especially when you having fun. I couldn’t believe my eyes one morning while we were out diving, there was a Whale Shark swimming beside us.
So what happened was, after a couple of hours doing work, I spent the next 100 hours diving in the ocean with tropical fish and sharks. This is something that everybody can try, and there is no pressure to go diving either, you can just enjoy the trip. This decision to go on holiday with a Client, was probably the best I had made in a while. Being able to go swimming in the open ocean with nobody else around was a surreal experience.
Diving holidays and Liveaboard diving is Great, not a very professional word, but there are not many ways to explain it, so whey not give luxury holidays a go in the Maldives!
Football and Safari, Oh What a Treat
The 2010 world cup is not too far off. England have already qualified as well as plenty more countries, it is set to be a very important even next summer that South Africa will be hosting. There are already vast batch of people reservation their summer holidays to Africa to delight a endearing even and also take in some fabulous sunshine.
Major tour operators have already clashed in trying to book tickets for the world cup time of year. The packages are not inexpensive and cost around £4,150, the price will let in tickets to three England games, 17 nights’ accommodation in a three-star hotel in Johannesburg on a B&B basis and return flights.
What better then to visit Africa and watch your country play, while you are also spending time going on Safari. Personally I cannot think of anything more relaxing, the world cup begins in June-July 2010, just when the season for clubs has finished. So the whole of South Africa will be full of sun, the beaches are going to be utterly gorgeous and the sands will be pure white.
Going on a Safari is an utterly astonishing feel if you have never been before; you get to see a wide range of different animals which you in all likelihood have never laid eyes on. I can ensure that you will in all likelihood end up having the best vacation of your life.
Could you imagine if your country also ended up winning the world cup, you would probably come back home not only feeling refreshed because of your safari and beach break, but you will also feel delighted simply because you probably got to witness one of the great moments in history. When will the next time be that Africa hosts a world cup?
For outstanding safari holidays, Zanzibar safari and Botswana safaris