Trip Itinerary

Week One – Introduction to Bolivia
An introduction to Bolivian culture, the Spanish language, and others on the programme. Our group will be based in the heart of Bolivia’s second city Sucre, within walking distance of markets, bars, cafes and salsa clubs.

During the week, we will:

• Live with a typical Bolivian family (sharing with other participants)
• Learn the language
• Learn to cook typical Bolivian food
• Trek through the Andes and swim in the glacial waters of the “Seven Cascades” waterfalls
• Visit a typical indigenous market

Week Two – Helping the locals
After our week's induction to Bolivian life, this is when we start learning more about solutions to poverty in Bolivia. This opportunity offers exciting hands-on work and a meaningful cultural immersion, working alongside local children from deprived backgrounds.  We can select one of three project options to get involved with:

 

Option 1: Educational Support Centre:

• Provides free educational support for children between four and 15 years old living in the poorer outskirts of Sucre.
• Teaching maths, languages, history, sciences, geography and also helping to cook, sweep, paint, wash dishes and help carry out general duties around the centre.

Option 2: Pachamama Children’s Centre:

• Interacting with the children and work to help the children paint, draw, sing, dance, teach numbers and colours and to play with them after they finish their activities.

Option 3: Teaching Centre for disabled children:

• Classes are run for children with different physical and mental disabilities.
• Volunteer activities can include playing football with the children, joining in with music classes, painting, music and helping with tasks around the school.

Week Three – The best of Bolivia
Week three offers another chance to get out and about and experience the true beauty of Bolivia for yourself. 

• Visit to Potosí, the highest city in the world at 4100 metres above sea level, once the richest source of silver in the world
• We will be going deep into the mines to observe miners still at work. 
• Four-day tour to the beautiful and remote landscapes of the far southwest.

• A visit to Salar de Uyuni, the biggest salt lake in the world with an apparently infinite surface covered in perfectly formed hexagons, with a backdrop of snow-capped mountains lining the horizon.
• We will visit the blood red and emerald green waters of the lakes pigmented by minerals and algae.
• An early morning trip to the geysers and hot springs set at over 4300 metres.

Week Four – Wildlife and Indigenous Community project
After flying from La Paz over the beautiful Andes Mountains we will arrive at the town of Rurrenabaque in the Amazonia region of Bolivia. We will then take a voyage along the Beni River through the rainforest to San Miguel del Bala where the indigenous Tacana people live.  This week will include:

• Staying with a Tacana family in very rustic accommodation where we have the chance to rest, enjoy the relaxed atmosphere, the sounds of the forest and the roar of the river from a hammock!
• Be part of the community, sharing the daily household duties, as an induction to the Tacana’s way of life.
• Gaining knowledge about medicinal plants and the preparation of exotic meals with the option to learn traditional hunting techniques.
• Assist the community with taking care of the forest for the benefit of future generations, work on community projects to improve facilities in their eco-lodge, train young people to be tourist guides, create new footpaths in the jungle or building cabins in the forest to protect the biodiversity.
• Guided tours deep into the jungle.