A Vacation in Bolivia

When we landed in Santa Cruz, Bolivia, I was certain that we had left Miami far behind. If someone told me five years ago that I would be taking a vacation in Bolivia, I would have laughed. After all, my idea of vacation is shopping in Paris or seeing the sites in Prague, but a vacation in the Third World? Thanks to my partner, Russell, and his Bolivian-American family, I was able to have a wonderful experience in a charming yet very poor country, and am looking forward to making a yearly trip there. Add the beauty of seeing a country through the eyes of the people who live there and you have a relaxing and cultural vacation.

The damp humidity of February summer in the Southern Hemisphere was tangible as we stepped out of the airport and I tried to catch my breath. The scenery in Santa Cruz is tropical in appearance with a slow ramp-up to the Andes foothills, a perfect compliment to the humidity and heat. As a tropical dweller myself, I saw that this area of the tropics is much more green and lush than our home in Miami, the picture of the subtropical rainforest I've always had in my mind.