Bolivia's little-known African tribal kingdom (2021)

You'll probably like Markama :-)

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UNZD5buXlmY

"Is it relatively safe?"

I have not been to Bolivia myself, but this question is always relative.

It depends what you count as save and where do you want to go, but also on your experience.

"for intense adventure and lifelong memories. Yungas death road on a rented bike is another very memorable experience"

Parent seems to have a higher risk tolerance.

Also it matters a lot, if you can speak spanish and can act like a local. But if you look and act like a helpless gringo tourist, then you will likely get robbed or worse on the first day.

But I know people who hitchhiked there without serious trouble as white gringos. So the answer is probably, it depends.

Entering Chernobyl is not scary unless you go digging in a few highly radioactive places like ruzzian soldiers did in 2022.

Prior that, you could go to Chernobyl with a tour and it was absolutely safe. Much safer than walking around random US city, actually.

Like with a lot of countries in South America, there are certainly places you shouldn't just wander about in. VRAEM in Peru is another example. But there is a lot of tourism in Bolivia. Most places are perfectly safe. Lonely Planet can be a good place to start if you're unsure.

It's definitely not "relatively safe" in what I as a European would consider a safe place - although I was told it got a lot better in the last decade. If you look like a rich tourist than you need to be careful, like pretty much anywhere in S. America. However if you present yourself as a nomad hippie looser with nothing worth the trouble of messing with you, you can go around and probably you'll have no big problems, but still requires a bit of common sense in interaction with people. And speaking at least some Spanish. It's not that people are not friendly, they're just poor, and the line between being friendly and hustling you is very thin.

Downvote, really? Why? Explain.

Bolivia was a high point in my trekking around S. America. I felt perfectly safe, and had no negative experiences. Beautiful kind people. In La Paz, I asked directions from a random passerby to their electronics market (I wanted to replace a pair of lost headphones), and the man cautioned me that some sellers might try to take advantage of me. He asked me what I was after, and told me what he would expect to pay. But, I had no issues, the price offered, by the first seller I approached, for a pair of Sony ear buds was less than $4-- the headphones only differed in color from the pair I had lost-- I had paid $16 at Target in the US for them.

I was alone, and, when in urban areas, mostly stayed in the hotels in the spaces above street-level businesses that are not geared toward foreign tourists (Spanish required). Except for La Paz, it was less than $10/night and usually between a few dollars to $5. Food was inexpensive and excellent too.

There were amazing historical sites. And, really interesting "hmmmmmm" contemporary things to encounter, if paying attention-- e.g., there was a tribe near Rurrenabaque that spoke Quechua?! (A language you would expect to encounter in central Peru, not there).

The Bolivian high desert is so high that the low hills are topped in ice (14000ft/4000m at the valley floor) and in the low-lands are tropical jungles and pampas. While trekking in the jungle, I saw Tapirs, sloth, jaguar scat/tracks, caiman (alligator/crocodile type animal), spider monkeys, howler monkeys, so many birds... It was amazing!

You will need some level of proficiency in Spanish, unless sticking to tourist places, but even then Spanish will be helpful though not required.

Highly recommend.

(for those unaccustomed to seeing men with guns, you will encounter men with rifles e.g., outside banks, in large cities like La Paz-- so, yes crime exists, but I didn't ever feel that sketch feeling where you decide it is time to leave a place, or not enter it, in the first place-- Bolivia felt very safe to me)

Everywhere has their bad parts. I arrived in La Paz in rough shape, as I hadn't slept on the red eye on the way in. I could have easily been taken advantage of. Instead the taxi driver took me right where I was going, helped me unload and communicate with the front desk of the building where my airbnb was.

The people are really friendly, generous, and happy.

I can't wait to go back

Par for the course. They may as well have one for Butch Cassidy too.

McDonalds flopped in Bolivia :)

Car dependent suburban sprawl necessitating 3 hours a day commutes by car 5 days a week,50 weeks a year is a much heavier load on the planet than an annual plane trip .

Interpol is an organisation for cooperation between national police organisations. They don't visit ordinary citizens or tourists, nor are they allowed to do any police actions in (other) countries. Are you sure that wasn't part of some (attempted) scam?

Wait, holup... :D

> Not sure I understand you correctly, but I strongly disagree that colonialism was a necessary foundation for todays wealthy western democracies.

Then go visit Sevilla and enjoy the output of the mines in the cathedral (no danger at all). And then think a little how amassing enough silver by slavery to make a 60feet high altar 300 years ago didn't give you quite a nice headstart on dominating a world where most other competing cultures valued the same metals as currency.

Not saying this is particularly wrong in the grand scheme or we need to all be in eternal deference to anyone claiming to be a descendant of the people our ancestors exterminated for this. But it should be clear, getting access to these resources and ruthlessly exploiting them made Europe rich and enabled all the other colonialization which followed.

Alexis de Tocqueville noted in the 1840s that slave-holding America was much poorer than non-slave-holding America, and why, and it's not the climate because there were cases where simply crossing a river border was crossing from wealth to poverty. Slavery absolutely did not benefit the masters, except in so far as it helped them feel better about themselves. "I'm better than you" is a human instinct that continues unabated to this day -- many absolutely adore that feeling as if it was a mind-altering drug hit.

> Industrialization is what brought prosperity to the masses.

Industrialization brought prosperity to the elites, just like colonialism and slavery did. You act like the poor masses were the biggest beneficiaries of industrialization. Most of the benefits of industrializations has gone to the elites. Just like colonialism and slavery.

> Colonialism and slavery benefited the reigning elite, but the average person almost didn’t see any benefit.

Simply false. Tens of millions of europeans crowded in the smallest continent on earth were able to migrate to other parts of the world and gain land ( which is one of the primary sources of wealth ). And the ability to offload excess population allowed european elite to invest in production rather than waste resources on their excess population. A win-win situation.

> Unfortunately that won’t stop people from lying that slavery is the foundation of wealthy western democracies.

Slavery and colonialism were the foundations of industrialization. Industrializaton requires two things - excess capital and excess resources. How do you think europe was able to procure excess capital and resources?

> Brazil had 10x more slaves than the USA [1]. They would have been the richest country in Latin America per capita if slavery was the foundation of rich modern democracies, but that’s far from the case

And one of the most industrialized nations ( North Korea ) is one of the poorest in the world. What's your point? Brazil ended slavery in the 1800s and industrialized. It still isn't 'one of the richest in Latin America per capita'? Obviously you need something more than industrialization. Like political safety and stability and competent leadership.

You seem to think people are saying you need slavery and colonialism to industrialize. That's not the case. The point is that europe industrialized due to slavery and colonialism.

It remarkable how many here watch silly youtube videos to get their understanding of history and economics.

Industrialization relied heavily upon raw materials generated cheaply with slavery - cotton picked in the American South was exported and was a necessity to fuel the industrialization of textile production in England, for example. There is a reason that industrializing and industrialized countries that relied on slavery and other exploitative economic relationships have achieved greater wealth than more newly industrializing countries have. America's wealth is largely supported by cheap labor and raw materials in other countries, opened up for the use of international corporations by state-sponsored violence - see America's history of interfering in South American politics or Chiquita's recent guilty verdict for sponsoring paramilitary forces in Colombia.

Only a few years ago did I learn through an economic historian, that throughout Dutch colonial rule, the entirety of that activity has been a loss, not a gain, to the Dutch state and thus the Dutch citizen (it is evident it was a loss for those enslaved in the process). All it did was make _some_ people _very_ rich, who in turn managed to convince everyone it was all worth the while.

The real money, also for the state, was made through trade with the Baltic area, during the Dutch Golden Age. Not trade with the Indies.

> Industrialization is what brought prosperity to the masses.

workers organization did. Early industries were mostly run like slaveshops and the only reason we didn't end up in that world was that the reigning elite needed someone to manage the colonies and thus needed some people educated a bit more (which then also went into industry too) - which turned out problematic.

> They would have been the richest country in Latin America per capita

Oh, the former slave-owners for sure are. Likely too in Nigeria if you know how to look.

If you expect a spaniard to feel guilt over something Carlos I did. Maybe we should talk about who Carlos I was.