Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
5 HOTELS NOT TO MISS
El Consulado
La Paz.
Hostal La Cúpula
Copacabana.
Hostal Sol y Luna
Coroico.
Parador Santa Maria La Real
Sucre.
La Víspera
Samaipata.
Hostels
The number of hostels in
Bolivia
is slowly increasing, and many of them are affiliated with
Hostelling International (
hihostels.com
)
. Relatively few have dorms or traditional hostel
facilities like communal kitchens, offering instead simple and inexpensive rooms, normally
with a choice of either shared or private bathroom.
Camping
Few travellers bother
camping
in Bolivia, unless they're exploring the country's wilderness
areas. Outside cities and towns, however, you can camp almost everywhere, usually for free.
Be aware, though, that in the highlands it gets extremely cold at night, while in the lowlands,
mosquitoes can be a real problem if your tent isn't screened. In the rainforest, a hammock
combined with a fitted mosquito net and a tarpaulin to keep off the rain allows you to camp
out pretty much anywhere.
When looking for a
place to camp
, it's usually okay to set up your tent in fields beyond the
outskirts of settlements, but you should ask permission from the nearest house first. In wil-
derness areas where there's no one around to ask, you can camp freely. On the more popular
trekking routes you may be asked for a small fee of a dollar or two by local villagers. Though
attacks
on trekkers are rare, you're obviously vulnerable if camping out alone: it's best to
camp with at least one other person, and women shouldn't camp unless accompanied by men.
In some
national parks
and other protected wilderness areas you'll find rustic shelters -
albergues
or
refugios
- where you can stay for a small fee, often in the
campamentos
used by
the park guards. Rudimentary cooking facilities and running water are usually available.
Specialist
camping equipment
is expensive and difficult to come by in Bolivia, being sold
only in a few shops in La Paz and Santa Cruz, so you should bring all you need from home. If
you do need to buy stuff, it's often best to look for travellers wanting to get rid of equipment
they no longer need - check out the notice boards in popular budget hotels in La Paz.
