Let me summarize this for ya very simply: Bolivia is a “must-do”.
For everybody.
If it wasn’t for the fact that absolutely nobody seems to know how the US visa works for this country, I’d probably stick around a bit longer. Unfortunately, some people seem to think it’s 30 days, others 90, and others 30-unless-you-get-a-visa-extension. So, just to avoid getting strip-searched and interrogated at the border, I think I’m gonna play it safe and head out on day 30 (hopefully I did my math right and the 17th is in fact 30 days and not 31).
For as much as people talk up Colombia, Chile, Argentina, Peru, etc., and mention Bolivia as like an “oh yeah you can just do that in a couple weeks it’s alright” I’m stunned. Like damn. Yeah sure, maybe the city life isn’t as rowdy as Medellin or Rio and the sites aren’t as world-renowned as Machu Picchu or the Caribbean Sea but it still swings out of its weight class like the ’07-’08 NY Giants against the New England Patriots (if you can’t tell, I said that cause I just got done watching the Tom Brady roast on Netflix – worth the view).
And like Eli Manning, it doesn’t get the credit it deserves. So here I am to dish some out.
For starters, two current top 5 trip highlights are courtesy of my time here: Salar de Uyuni and Huayna Potosi.
Huayna Potosi is a mountain located just outside of La Paz that towers at 6,088 meters high. For those of you keeping score back home that’s about a single football field away (both American and normal football) from being as tall as Mt. Denali – ya know that funny mountain up in Alaska that’s just oh… the tallest mountain in North America. Oh yeah, and taller than 50% of the 7 Summits.
Yeah, that? We climbed it. Excuse me. Summited.
From the activity itself to the details along the way: undoubtedly the most rogue thing I’ve ever done.
I had been trying to figure out when to do it when I ran into Troja and Sara, two Swedish friends whom I’d met at the bar the night before, at Cholitas Wrestling (yeah I know, think WWE… but Bolivians – so fun). While chatting I brought up my plans to do it and they told me they were doing the same the next morning. So naturally I decided to message their company and tell them I wanted to join the group leaving in 12 hours.
Crazy #1 ✅
The next morning I show up early to get fitted for gear (since I booked so late) and notice a few bags with names on them that I recognized. Low-and-behold, in stroll some French friends I’d met the day prior as well, talking about doing the mountain.
Crazy #2 ✅
Day one: After dropping our stuff at base camp, we head out for some equipment training which included crampon ascents, crampon descents, ice axe usage… and scaling the side of a glacier
I won that race btw.
Crazy #3 ✅
Day two: We haul all our gear up to high camp at 5,200m where we will stay the night before our final ascent to the summit. Ah, wait a sec… can I really say night if we had to wake up at 12am to start?
Crazy #4 ✅
The hike was BRUTAL. I mean, I knew the altitude effects were supposed to be ridiculous going into it. I’d heard stories of migraines, inability to breathe, vomiting, and rapid-onset dysentery (yes those effects are as you picture them). I was prepared to face that and came armed with a pill for every unfortunate altitude side effect I may experience. What I didn’t expect was the terrain. Somehow people had forgotten to mention the fact that you had to walk along less-than-meter wide ice bridges between 50m crevasses on a glacier.
Crazy #5 ✅
And scale 70-degree icy cliffs that ended in the same sort of crevasses.
Crazy #6 ✅
But holy hell let me tell you it was
So.
Damn.
Worth it.
Take away the stunning sunrise that photos will never do justice, the swig of coffee liqueur that only tasted good because it was at 6,088m altitude, or Calym’s beautiful renditions of Unwritten throughout the night, and you still have the fact that we. Freaking. Did it.
12/12
Not a single person turned back. Talk about some ballers man.
Crazy #7 ✅
And through it all, we became a boisterous group of pals with some assistance from (or arguably despite) Cambio – a crowd-favorite card game of pure skill.
Salar de Uyuni is an area of land 3,9002 miles (10,0002 sq km) completely covered in crystallized salt.
Of course I tasted it – I mean, c’mon.
I’m not exaggerating when I say this was the most unique natural landscape I have ever seen in my life. Utterly incredible. Like don’t get me wrong, the whole tour was amazing – exploring volcanic lagoons and geysers, climbing around rocks like kids on an elementary playground, and jamming to all the 2000s party classics. But the salt flats smashed everything by a country mile.
I could try to explain it but like just look.
It’s like a mirror man. The absurd flatness of the landscape and flat, light underbody creates the perfect optical illusion of a massive mirror you can walk, run, or (as I insisted) heel click on.
It kinda feels like being in the Harry-sees-Dumbledore-before-coming-back-from-the-dead scene. Just miles and miles of emptiness. Crazy.
Oh yeah and did I also mention how we booked this like 12 hours before beginning as well? See the theme?
Okay, cool Keagan we get it those sound sick. You’re so cool (I know guys stop it). But that’s only two things – hardly makes a country.
How about spending 6 days in the Amazon swimming with dolphins, fishing piranhas, and hacking through brush with a machete?
What about flying down a 31 km long stretch of rocky gravel with kilometer-high sheer cliffs to your side named “Death Road”?
Or like visiting the world’s highest city which coincidentally used to be the richest city in the Western Hemisphere until the Spanish plundered its silver trade?
Okay, last one I promise but also swimming in a lake that is the largest (by volume and area) in South America, the highest navigable in the world, and the Incans used to believe the new world began from?
All that? Bolivia.
And that was in less than a month.
Okay, I’m done… telling you why Bolivia is sick. Now let’s talk logistics.
Bolivia is incredibly accessible
Monetarily and lingually (don’t know that’s a word just roll with it).
1. Monetarily
For me, the biggest kicker that makes Bolivia a “must-do” is how affordable it can be as a foreigner.
Accommodation? $5-6 per night for a good hostel w/ breakfast.
$10 per night for a good private hotel room w/ breakfast.
This was my view this morning from Isla Del Sol in a private room.
It was $6.50.
Lunch? Less than $2 for a massive bowl of soup, meat, rice, potato, salad, and sometimes a drink. And if you’re willing to take on the street food (which was gas by the way)… less than $1.
LESS. THAN. $1.
Overnight buses between cities? $10-12
The excursions?
3-day mountaineering excursion with all food, equipment, accommodation, and guide included… $120.
You want to do that back home? Add a zero or two to that.
3-day driving salt flat tour with all food, accommodation, and guide included… $170 (and technically that was bought in Chile so from Bolivia think like less than $100)
Full-day mountain biking excursion with all food, bus transfer, equipment, guide, and pool (?) at the end… $35
6-day jungle excursion with… let’s just say everything included to make it shorter… $260
That’s 2 full weeks of being a rogue daredevil without a single break for just over $500.
That’s less than half the cost of your week-long all-inclusive Cancun resort you booked for spring break last year.
Now I do feel the need to say I understand this is still not necessarily cheap and $500 is still a lot of money, but that’s cheaper than just about any other international vacation you’re ever going to find while also somehow being crazier. That’s why I say it’s affordable but not cheap.
Once you get past the obviously expensive international flight costs and the inconvenience of buying the visa if you’re from the States, it’s unbeatable. As my friend put it, it may be the one country that rivals Southeast Asia in affordability to foreigners just without the need for $1000 one-way flights or vaccines.
2. Language
Let’s throw the caveat in here of “if you learned Spanish in high school”. Bolivians have the easiest damn accent of any Spanish-speaking country out there.
After months of learning “vos”, “sh” instead of “y”, slurred words, and chopping off the letter “s”… I now feel like a Spanish-speaking master understanding 95% of what’s going on around me. And they speak slowwwww.
For my still-flaming gringo, yankee-self…
Muy bien.
And I know I added the caveat of “if you learned Spanish in high school” but honestly even if you didn’t, private Spanish tutors are $4-5 an hour here too.
Talk about a deal.
Makes me question why I ever spent college tuition on Spanish classes when I could have just done it better and more enjoyably for a minuscule fraction of the cost here.
I’m telling you: if you’re planning to go international for a vacation just give this place a look.
You won’t be disappointed.
Keagan’s World 
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