The Climate

That should read the climates, for there is not only one in Bolivia, and seasons are uncontainable in a calendar of ordered days. I was told to bring warm clothes to La Paz as the weather was very cold,and so it is, unbearably so, intermittently, when it is not so warm that it is equally unbearable to walk around in the heavy layers obediently pulled on at first light.

Around the country there is an immense variation in temperature that I am only beginning to comprehend. I came armed with my guide book and my tourist itinerary of trips. Such arrogance, such deridible indifference to Pachamama and Mother Earth.

Just North East of La Paz lies Coroico I have not been there yet but it is on my list. It is sub tropical. Sucre, the beautiful city to the South of La Paz has a temperate climate, in Cochabamba it is Springtime every day of the year. In the far South in Salar de Oyuni it is very very cold and very very beautiful. It is the zone of white burning salt deserts that strip the skin from travellers if industrial strength sun tan cream is not applied and at night it is the place that converts all accommodation in to a tomb. Beyond it lies Rurrenabaque which like Santa Cruz is tropical rainforest. The zones of wild and beautiful animals and vibrant stunning birds.

It is a climate of such complexity the weather on any one day in any one place cannot be predicted. The general trend can be known and here, where I am in La Paz, everyone knows it is rainy season. I hadn't got a clue.

Hence my itinerary of trips is in the bin... all very inconvenient, but only that, not devastating, not life changing, not another day of abject misery sitting with a tarpaulin wrapped around my knees as my family tries to earn a living.

Not homelessness.......