La Paz's cable-car system Teleferico a heady ride that bridges Bolivia's values
La Paz's cable-car system Teleferico a heady ride that bridges Bolivia's values
By Hilary MacGregor
December 12, 2015, 9:00 AM |LA PAZ, Bolivia
Wedged into a crevice in the Andes, La Paz is high, steep, crowded and chaotic.
The administrative capital of Bolivia, with close to a million inhabitants, sits at nearly 12,000 feet in a bowl ringed by mountains. Terra-cotta-red buildings tumble down the hills, and the narrow, vertiginous streets are jammed with motorcycles, buses, cars, motor taxis and pedestrians. Triple-peaked Illimani, always covered with snow, towers dramatically over the city.
But above all of this is the brilliant Mi Teleférico, a 21st century transportation system uniquely suited to La Paz: Red, yellow and green gondolas glide up and down the hillsides, skimming the skyline. A ride costs about 50 cents for a one-way ticket.
To get to the red line from our hotel, we hiked about a half-mile up a hill, then walked through gridlocked traffic circles while dodging vendors, cars, buses.
The Estación Central/Taypi Uta station is futuristic, spotless and high-tech. Each gondola has solar panels on top that power the doors, lights and Wi-Fi for passengers' use.
More:
http://www.latimes.com/travel/la-tr-d-bolivia-teleferico-20151213-story.html
= new reply since forum marked as read
Bolivia's raw beauty calls to travelers looking for adventure
Hilary MacGregor
December 12, 2015, 9:00 AM |LA PAZ, Bolivia
Bolivia may be the hottest ticket in South America.
Yes. Bolivia.
With President Evo Morales' election to a third term in November 2014, Bolivia has enjoyed nine years of political stability — one of the longest stretches in its history since its independence from Spain in 1825. That has led to unprecedented financial growth; Bolivia's economy grew by 6.5% in 2013, making it the fastest-growing in all of South America.
you want high-end luxury travel, this is not the country for you. But if you are looking for raw, untamed beauty and rugged adventure, Bolivia is calling your name. My husband, my sons Theo, 12, and Benji, 10, and I visited Bolivia this summer (winter in Bolivia) as part of a two-month South American odyssey. We went in search of adventure and to see the source of the silver that had fueled the Spanish empire.
. . .
Western countries blast Morales for being a socialist, but his nationalization of certain industries and investments in roads and a stunning new public transportation system in La Paz, as well as in airports and telecommunications, make travel safer, easier and more accessible for visitors. Many of the changes are so new that they were not reflected in our 2015 Bolivia guidebooks.
La Paz's Mi Teleférico — as the system of airborne cable cars or gondolas is called — opened three lines in 2014 (red, yellow and green, for the Bolivian flag), and six more are planned. The city finished the first of three phases of airport modernization in July. The winding road between Sucre and Potosí was repaved in the last three years, making it faster and safer. And the airport in Uyuni, formerly just a landing strip, now has a terminal, a runway and has multiple flights a day from La Paz, making a trip to the salt flats easier.
More:
http://www.latimes.com/travel/la-tr-d-bolivia-main-20151213-story.html
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"Cerro ricco" by Mhwater at Dutch Wikipedia - Eigen foto. Originally from nl.wikipedia; description page is/was here.. Licensed under Public Domain via Commons - https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Cerro_ricco.jpg#/media/File:Cerro_ricco.jpg[/center]
A Bolivian location the Chamber of Commerce does NOT advertise as a popular tourist spot:
Cerro Rico (also called Cerro de Potosí, Quechua Sumaq Urqu) is a mountain in the Andes near the Bolivian city of Potosí. Cerro Rico was famous for providing vast quantities of silver for Spain during the period of the New World Spanish Empire. The mountain, which is popularly conceived of as being "made of" silver ore, caused the city of Potosí to become one of the largest cities in the New World. After 1800, the silver mines were depleted, making tin the main product. This eventually led to a slow economic decline. Nevertheless, the mountain continues to be mined for silver to this day. Due to poor worker conditions, such as a lack of protective equipment against the constant inhalation of dust, many of the miners contract silicosis and have a life expectancy of around 40 years. The mountain is still a significant contributor to the city's economy, employing some 15,000 miners.
It is known as 'mountain that eats men' because of the large number of workers who died in the mines. Some writers such as Eduardo Galeano in his work Open Veins of Latin America estimate, quoting Josiah Conder,[1] that up to 8 million men have died in the Cerro Rico since the 16th century. Historians such as Peter Bakewell,[2] Noble David Cook,[3] Enrique Tandeter [4] and Raquel Gil Montero [5] take a different and more academic approach to the issue.
As a result of centuries long mining, in 2011 a sinkhole in the top appeared and had to be filled with ultra-light cement. The summit also continues to sink a few centimetres every year.[6] In 2014, UNESCO added Cerro Rico and Potosí to its list of endangered sites, owing to "uncontrolled mining operations" that risk "degrading the site".
More:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cerro_Rico
(My emphasis.)
