Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
although the dry season is less pronounced and rain remains a possibility all year round. A
few times a year, usually between July and August, the country is swept by
cold fronts
com-
ing up from Patagonia, known as
surazos
, which can send temperatures plunging even in the
Amazon. Towards the end of the dry season in late August and September, farmers set fire to
cleared forest areas across much of Bolivia, which can obscure views and cause respiratory
problems.
Summer
(
verano
) is the
rainy season
, which runs roughly from November to March and is
much more pronounced in the lowlands; in the Amazon, road transport becomes pretty much
impossible, as huge areas are flooded and everything turns to mud - though, conversely, river
transport becomes more frequent. Heat, humidity and mosquitoes are also much worse. In the
highlands, particularly the Altiplano, it rains much less and travel is not as restricted, though
delays and road closures still occur, while trekking trails get muddier and clouds often ob-
scure views, particularly in the high mountains, where route-finding can become impossible.
Despite this, the rainy season is also a very beautiful time in the Andes, as the parched Alti-
plano and mountainsides are briefly transformed into lush grassland and wild flowers prolif-
erate.
COCA: SACRED LEAF OF THE ANDES
Nothing is more emblematic of Bolivia than
coca
, the controversial leaf that has been cul-
tivated for thousands of years in the Andean foothills. To ordinary Bolivians, coca is at
once a useful stimulant to combat hunger and tiredness, a medicine for altitude sickness
and a key religious and cultural sacrament with magical powers used in rituals and offer-
ings. To the outside world, however, it is infamous as the raw material for the manufacture
of
cocaine
(as well as, reputedly, still a key ingredient of Coca-Cola).
Thousands of farmers depend on coca for their livelihoods, and President Evo Morales -
who remains head of the biggest coca-growing union - has repeatedly stressed that the leaf
is an intrinsic part of indigenous Andean culture. Although Morales has promised a policy
of “zero cocaine but not zero coca”, Bolivia remains the world's third-largest producer of
the drug, and cocaine use within the country has risen dramatically in recent years. In 2011
the country renounced a
UN anti-drug convention
because it classified the coca leaf as an
illegal drug.
