Highlights map showing the best sights. Detailed information on Bolivian arts and crafts and where to find them. Complete guide to the mountains, as well as the jungle with its many eco options. Eye-opening insights into Bolivian culture. Comprehensive guide to trekking in the Cordillera. Details on choosing the right tour for the Salar de Uyuni, the largest salt lake in the world, and the Bolivian pampas.
Annotation Tropical jungles in the Amazon Basin give way to beautiful deserts in the altiplano. The Andes, with four of the world's highest peaks, offer some of the best hiking, climbing and caving on earth. Ruins of ancient civilizations dot the land. Bolivia has much to offer, and this guide shows you how to experience it all, through the people, the culture and exploration of even the most remote spots, with their hidden treasures. An extensive Introduction covers the history, geography and the unique landscape, and provides a list of the country's top highlights for easy planning.
Hunter Pocket Adventure Guides contain all the practical travel information you need - places to stay and eat, tourist information resources, travel advice, emergency contacts, and more - plus condensed sections on history and geography that give you good background knowledge of the destination. The author is fascinated with the destination and her passion comes across in the text, which is lively, revealing, and a pleasure to read. Sidebars highlight unusual facts and tell of local legends, adding to your travel experience. Detailed town and regional maps make planning day-trips or city tours easy. Adventures covered range from town sightseeing tours and nature watching to sea kayaking and organized jungle excursions. Travelers looking for a more relaxed vacation may want to sign up for traditional dance lessons in Bolivia, drum classes in the Dominican Republic, or attend a weaving school in Bolivia - these cultural adventures will introduce you to the people and afford you a truly unique travel experience. Over the last two years I have traveled Bolivia four times. Among the score of Bolivian guides that I have reviewed, two stand out: Pocket Adventures Bolivia and Footprint Bolivia. Both are solid guides, yet, both have their flaws.
This guide is based on our much larger (530-page) guide to Bolivia. Here we zero in on La Paz, The capital, and all of the nearby attractions. La Paz is not a big city on the world scale, but it is certainly one of the more interesting ones. Built in a bowl created by the Choqueyapu River, The upper parts of the city stand 1,645 ft/500 m above the lower sections. Unlike any other city in the world, The richer neighborhoods are located at the lower levels. This is partly due To The fact that it is warmer and easier to breathe at the lower altitudes. Also, The pinnacles and spires of conglomerate rock and clay that have been sculptured by wind and water make a dramatic backdrop for those living below them. The higher up the bowl one goes, The more unstable the land becomes And The more likely a landslide will occur. The plazas, squares and Prado are well kept in La Paz and even in the depth of winter plants are tended to help make the city attractive. Street cleaners are out every day and local merchants regularly wash the area in front of their shops. On a clear day, Mount Illimani, a snow-covered monolith, can be seen as a sentry towering over the city. Valley of the Moon is six miles/10 km from the center of La Paz and can be reached by joining a tour or by taking micro bus #11 or minibus #231 or 273 to Mallasilla. The hillside features a maze of clay canyons and pinnacles that have been sculpted by wind and rain. Narrow trails through the landscape take about an hour to walk. There is also a cactus park just before the entrance. The park overlooks a gorge and has paths leading around numerous types of cacti. As you continue up the road you will come to Parque National Mallasa with its bird observatory and, across the road, The zoo area. The road passes under natural stone bridges and past Chulpani's Red Hill. There is no mistaking which hill this is. From Mallasa one can see across the river To The highest golf course in the world. Devil's Tooth or Muela del Diablo is a huge volcanic plug sticking out of the landscape to a height of 13,000 ft/3,950 m. Several trails go To The right; follow the one that obviously leads To The village. From there, go To The left for .3 miles (about half a kilometer), To the foot of the rock. Climbers are occasionally found on the east face. Canyon de Palca, or Valle de Animas, Is a deep canyon that was carved by the Rio Palca centuries ago. To get there, take a bus going to Huni from Plaza Belzu on Avenida Mexico in San Pedro. There are huge pinnacles and wind-carved conglomerates. The trail continues along the bottom of the canyon to a natural obelisk. Just past the obelisk is a rock that has the appearance of a human hiding in a cave. The rock is called the hermit of the canyon. Continue along the canyon to its end and climb to your left up To The village of Palca. This is a long day-hike. All of the detailed information you need is here about the hotels, restaurants, shopping, sightseeing. But we also lead you to new discoveries, turning corners you haven't turned before, helping you to interact with the world in new ways. That's what makes our Adventure Guides unique. "An excellent addition To The Adventure Guide series, packed with detail, from where to stay and eat, To where to shop for local crafts and how to enjoy historic sites. This guide surveys the wildlife and outdoor opportunities of the country, which range from tropical jungle to high plains deserts. Hiking and viewing opportunities blend with cultural insights. Highly recommended." - The Midwest Book Review.
Talking about the most exciting continent on earth, this title discusses the best of festivals, swimming with sea lions, and walking with dinosaurs. Get off the beaten track. It also talks about cities of gold and mountains of silver, where to eat, drink, and sleep, evolution, revolution, and visitors from outer space. With full- colour maps, it also looks at the pick of heart-stopping adventure activities, man-eating fish, blood-sucking bats, and smooth-talking dolphins.
The Pantanal covers over 81,000 square miles of wilderness, an area larger than Greece. It is considered the world's largest wetland and is one of the richest wilderness areas on the planet. The Pantanal spreads across Bolivia, Brazil and Paraguay. During the rainy season (October through March) Rio Paraguay floods the entire savannah, transforming the area into a huge swamp. Pantanal means "swamp" in Portuguese. However, during dry season the swamps disappear and the land becomes a savannah dotted with lakes and ponds. The canals formed by the river are destinations in themselves. T.
These brand-new or newly updated guides feature the authoritative and detailed coverage characteristic of all Footprint Handbooks. The authors are experts who have lived or worked in the countries they write about, and their prose will inspire readers to enjoy traveling as much as they do. -- Hands down the most current and authoritative resource for maps and vital global information -- Packed with up-to-date information, including highlights of virtually every town and site -- Includes money-saving tips, advice on staying healthy, and anecdotes on local history, culture, customs, and etiquette.
Anthropologists training to do fieldwork in far-off, unfamiliar places prepare for significant challenges with regard to language, customs, and other cultural differences. However, like other travelers to unknown places, they are often unprepared to deal with the most basic and necessary requirement: food. Although there are many books on the anthropology of food, Adventures in Eating is the first intended to prepare students for the uncomfortable dining situations they may encounter over the course of their careers. Whether sago grubs, jungle rats, termites, or the pungent durian fruit are on the table, participating in the act of sharing food can establish relationships vital to anthropologists' research practices and knowledge of their host cultures. Using their own experiences with unfamiliar-and sometimes unappealing-food practices and customs, the contributors explore such eating moments and how these moments can produce new understandings of culture and the meaning of food beyond the immediate experience of eating it. They also address how personal eating experiences and culinary dilemmas can shape the data and methodologies of the discipline. The main readership of Adventures in Eating will be students in anthropology and other scholars, but the explosion of food media gives the book additional appeal for fans of No Reservations and Bizarre Foods on the Travel Channel.
