My vacation account may seem boring, but I want to highlight some aspects that, for some, will seem like an alien country - and culture.

We (I, my wife, 2 children) went to Potosí, where my wife's family lives, for a few days.

The trip, by bus, takes an entire night. Airline, the distance is only 300-400 km. The road has many curves, you see, among the mountains.

There is also a part where the road goes straight for about 2 hours: the Altiplano. That's a fairly flat strip of land (with ocassional hills or mountains), but at an altitude of ca. 4000 meters.

The city of Potosí is also at an altitude of ca. 4000 meters. Every time I travel there, I get sorojchi; the local name for altitude disease. Mainly headaches. The main cause of sorojchi is, pressumably, lack of oxygen at the greater altitude.

The usually-recommended cure for sorojchi is a tea from the leaves of Eritroxylon Coca (sp?). The posession or use of these leaves isn't illegal in Bolivia - however, certain refined end-products are illegal. Exporting the leaves, however, is either illegal, or simply not worth the trouble.

Potosí started as a mining city. In the height of its glory (so it is said) it was the largest city in the world. Some 200-300 years ago. Now, the mining business decayed. Close to the city, mining was mainly done in the Sumaj Orcko, the "Wealthy Mountain", an almost conical mountain that dominates the landscape.

One of the strange customs of the people in large parts of Bolivia is, when drinking something (especially alcoholic beverages), to offer a small part to Pachamama, that is, Mother Earth. That is, a small part of the beverage is simply spilled on the floor...


Additional notes:

Some of the words used are from Quechua - an indigenous language spoken mainly in Bolivia, Peru and Ecuador.

What I said doesn't apply to all of Bolivia - both the landscape and the local habits are quite different in the lowlands, for instance. Bolivia has a large variety of people and landscapes.

Hilmar.