BOLIVIA

Landlocked at the remote heart of South America, Bolivia rewards the adventurous travelers and encompasses everything that outsiders find most mysterious about the continent.


The country's cultural diversity and ethnic make-up are equally fascinating. Three centuries of colonial rule have left their mark on the nation's language, religion and architecture, but this is essentially little more than a veneer overlying indigenous cultural traditions that stretch back long before the arrival of the Spanish. Geographically, Bolivia is dominated by the Andes, which march through the west in two parallel chains, each studded with snowcapped peaks; between them stretch the barren, windswept expanses of the Altiplano.