Nervous About Traveling to Bolivia? Come on Down!!

I got a note from one of our new readers this morning, a college instructor in Norway. He wrote about how much he and his family loved Bolivia when they traveled here a few years ago and that they were thinking of coming back. Yet they are nervous to come back because of the ongoing news of Bolivian political unrest.

A message to anyone reading who is thinking of coming our way but nervous to do so – Come on down!! I have NEVER, in more than seven years of living here met ANYONE who was disappointed that they came. I have met dozens upon dozens of people, from the US, Europe, Canada and elsewhere, who found their lives changed in deep ways for having come here.

I am reminded of the feeling that I had a few years back when I attended the ceremony in San Francisco where Oscar Olivera was awarded the Goldman Prize for his work on the Cochabamba water revolt. The Goldman Fund made a video to show that night, one full of violent images of Bolivia. True, what was in those images really happened, but they did not create a true impression of what it is really like to be here. I felt some personal guilt over this, as someone who played a big role in bringing the water revolt story to the world. My response was a slide show which I published on our Web site on my return – Cochabamba, the Place Where I Live.

Even when there is some sort of political turmoil here, as there almost always is somewhere, you have to pretty much deliberately put yourself in the middle of it to end up in the middle of it. More likely you’ll only know its happening from the newspapers, or at least end up learning something from it.

Also, always be a little wary of the travel warnings from the US State Department. The folks there seem like they are paid sometimes to overreact. A couple of years ago during a bout of Bolivian rebellion the US designated the soccer field of my kids’ school as the “official” evacuation point for US families should it become necessary. Supposedly we would be helicoptered out and then flown to the US (for free I think!). The US citizens that I know here thought it was all pretty funny. No one even imagined leaving.

Citizens of other countries were given evacuation priority according to, it seemed, whether or not their nation was supporting the US war in Iraq. Brits came second and I think Canadians were last. I vowed that I would never leave without our two dogs, Simone and Little Bear (mother and daughter, by the way). I joked to my Canadian friends that our dogs would get helicoptered out before they did.

In any event, if you are thinking of coming to Bolivia for a visit, do not give it a second thought. Just come! But do remember, in the event that something really unexpected happens, my dogs leave first.