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Bolivia is truly a Pandora’s box full of picturesque landscapes, treasures from the colonial days, vibrant indigenous cultures and the legacy of ancient civilizations. The most isolated and the highest of Latin American Republics, Bolivia is a landlocked country. It is also the most Indian country in Latin America with 50% of its people holding on fiercely to their traditional cultural values.
From the magnificent snow capped Andes to the teeming banks of the Amazon, this country is sure to excite the adventurous best in you.
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Historically Speaking
The Andean region of Bolivia has probably been inhabited for some 20,000 years. Beginning about the 2nd century B.C., the Tiwanakan culture developed at the southern end of Lake Titicaca. This culture was centered around and named after the great city of Tiwanaku and developed advanced architectural and agricultural techniques before it seemingly disappeared for extended drought around 1200 A.D. Roughly contemporary to the Tiwanakan culture, were the Moxos in the eastern lowlands and the Mollos north of present-day La Paz who developed advanced agricultural societies but dissipated by the 1300 AD. Around 1450, the Quechua-speaking Incas entered the area of modern highland Bolivia and added it to their empire. They controlled the area until the Spanish conquest in 1525.
Alto Peru gained independence and became the Republic of Bolivia in 1825. The country suffered a great deal at the hands of Chile, Brazil and Paraguay and broke away large tracts to add to their largesse. Bolivia remains the poorest of South American countries today.
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Habitat
Even though Bolivia has lost large areas of territory in wars, it’s still the fifth largest country in South America. Landlocked, it is surrounded by Brazil, Peru, Argentina, Paraguay and Chile. The Andean range runs into some 650km in Bolivia. The western Cordillera separates Bolivia from Chile and has extremely high peaks that reaches up to 6500m and are home for a number of active volcanoes.
The Altiplano, or the high plain, lies to the east of the mountain ranges. This is a barren, windswept area and most of it is 4000m above sea level. It covers about 10% of the country. To the northern end of the Altiplano lies the Lake Titicaca that is supposed to be the world’s highest navigable Lake .The northern part of Bolivia is more fertile and more inhabited. The southern part is dry and almost desolate with practically no population.
Within it's borders are various branches of the Andes high altitude mountains and glaciers, the vast Altiplano plateau that include rivers and lakes (L. Titicaca & Poopo), the arid and frigid deserts in the south-western region, the world's largest salt flat (Salar de Uyuni), cloud forests in the transition areas of the Andes, semi-tropical and tropical forests from the highland valleys to the eastern lowlands of the upper Amazon basin, vast tropical savannahs in the northern regions and the scrub forests and deserts of the Chaco in south-eastern Bolivia.
Due to its relatively sparse population, lack of development and diverse geography, Bolivia is one of the best places on the continent to see South American wildlife. Fauna include the rare spectacled bear, jaguar, vicuña, llama, alpaca, anteater, tapir, capybara, turtle, alligator, rhea and condor. Although Bolivia has a fairly good national park system, encroachment into the lowlands of the Amazonian basin by settlers is increasing, and the huge fortunes awaiting those prepared to exploit the area's mineral, agricultural and timber resources have made environmentalism a less convenient posture for the government to adopt. In the Altiplano, the vegetation is sparse and mostly made of tough clumps of grass called ‘ichu', short and tough “Thola” bushes and occasional clumps of native trees called “Quenua”.
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