Culture Shock! Bolivia - A Survival Guide to Customs and Etiquette

vi INTRODUCTION

‘To a wanderer in a snow covered fi eld, a dried up prune

or an old crust of bread tasted more delicious than

a whole meal here with the prosperous guildsmen’.

—Hermann Hesse

Where is Bolivia? Club Med doesn’t know, leaving lush

semitropical swimming holes without sleek, manicured

tourists. Pop-stars don’t care, so Bolivia must be content with

centuries-old harmonies and dance steps, as well as its home-

grown fusion music, Latin, rock and jazz. Corporate giants

and pop culture icons have not yet discovered Bolivia, which

means that Bolivia must not exist.

At a Washington DC university Spanish class, I asked my

students to write down the names of the countries they knew

of in Latin America. None of them named Bolivia. (One wrote

down Puerto Vallarta, a beach town in Mexico.)

One Cold War rumour referred to remote Bolivia as the

safest place to hide during a nuclear war. Since this country

was of no strategic importance, neither side had any reason

to blow it to bits.

BOLIVIA.indb vi 7/13/10 2:47:16 PM