First Impressions 5in this country is indigenous and that few places in the world
have a comparable degree of biodiversity, for you’d have
to search far and wide to fi nd any other country that still
maintained 46 per cent of its land as protected forest.
All that oxygen fi ltering up from Bolivia, helping people
breathe in far-off continents, and yet so very little of it was
reaching my own lungs! My upward and awkward fi rst steps
at an outdoor stairway were interrupted by a gasping for air. A
doctor in the family told me that my blood pressure was way
above normal, a condition he attributed to the altitude.
I resolved one day to hike with ease at 5,000 m (16,404 ft).
But fi rst I had to learn to walk all over again.
Eventually, my fi rst impressions would be reformulated
as I went ‘down’ to the colonial city of Sucre, white stucco
façades under orange tile rooftops nestled in a lush green
valley, only 2,790 m (9,150 ft) above sea level, where I learned
fi rst hand the theory of relativity. Suddenly, where people
from sea level would be gasping for breath, I was taking in
an abundance of oxygen relative to La Paz, in a setting of
eternal spring.
From Sucre, I learned to anticipate that every corner of
this immense country would offer new surprises: radically
different microclimates, changing languages and accents and
altered hierarchies of the fi ve senses.
I had discovered a country where the unexpected is normal
and not a single breath is taken for granted.