For years, travel to Bolivia was the preserve only of the adventurous backpacker. Few luxuries, each road bumpier than the last and seemingly constant political coups kept the well-heeled well away. Today, however, much has changed.
Bolivia’s hospitality industry has woken up to the spectacular natural wonders on its doorstep, and catering to the most demanding of travellers is now no longer a pipe dream. While still very much an adventure, a journey to Bolivia, more than to any other South American country, rewards you with landscapes and traditions that are vanishing elsewhere on the continent.
"At Explorations Company, we can open up Bolivia’s frontier regions like few others."
Many may have heard of the high desert route from Bolivia to Chile, travelling across immense saltpans, past volcanoes and technicolour flamingo-dotted soda lakes. With opportunities at either end to explore La Paz and Lake Titicaca, and relax in the oasis town of San Pedro de Atacama, it remains today one of the world’s great adventures. Venture beyond the altiplano, though, and you’ll discover colonial cities like Sucre and Potosi, seldom explored Andean valleys and lowland rainforests teeming with rare and diverse wildlife.
At Explorations Company, we can open up Bolivia’s frontier regions like few others. We like to use a combination of 4x4s, boats, helicopters and light planes, along with private camps and a team of chefs and expert guides, to curate intensely personalised adventures in the country’s furthest reaches. Imagine tracking jaguars, maned wolves and anacondas from your own private camp built on a palm island among a flooded savannah; summiting an ancient Inca staircase in the Andes to find a massage therapist, dinner and your favourite tipple awaiting; or journeying to the headwaters of an Amazonian river to source some of the world’s last truly wild cacao as part of your own curated bean-to-bar journey?
A rich tapestry of indigenous peoples includes the Andes’ oldest intact cultures, many of whom still practise their time-honoured customs to this day. Prior to the arrival of the Conquistadors in the sixteenth century, and the discovery of silver—which bankrolled the Spanish Empire and led to Potosi becoming, briefly, the richest city on Earth— Bolivia’s human history stretches back millennia. In the Andes, first the Tiahuanaco and then Inca Empires held sway (bequeathing important archaeological monuments), while the lowlands were inhabited by a variety of Amerindian cultures. Participating in the festivities of La Diablada in Oruro, or trekking through the Kallawaya healing communities of the Cordillera Apolobamba, is a wonderful way of lifting the veil on an often shy and reserved people.
A new wave of hoteliers is now beginning to open up the country’s miraculous landscapes to the most demanding of guests, whether that means a luxury Airstream placed amid the immensity of the Salar de Uyuni, a remote fly-in jungle lodge in the Amazonian lowlands, or a sleek design hotel in the capital La Paz.
