South America highlights tour

Planet

This trip travels to Bolivia's Eduardo Avaroa Andean Fauna Reserve, visiting Laguna Colorada, Laguna Verde and other wetlands, home of the Andean Condor, three flamingo species, Puma, Lesser Rhea, Guanaco, Andean Deer, among other spectacular wildlife species that live in a distinctive extreme living landscape that include large extensions of dry puna grasslands, high altitude deserts, dormant volcanoes, snow peaks above 5000 m, rare bogs and wetlands. There are several colorful hypersaline lagoons that are roosting and nesting sites of three species of flamingos that conglomerate in hundreds or several thousands along the year. Also it crosses the spectacular Uyuni Salt Flat the most important nature traction in Bolivia. Presently, the Altiplano region is being impacted with the increment of medium and large-scale open mining operations in search of silver, copper and lithium, all producing harmful environmental impacts, mostly in precious pure water sources and fine wetlands. We believe that the best alternative to conserve the nature wonders of the Altiplano, inside and outside preserves, is ecotourism, wildlife, and/or photography tourism, which have been proven to be the best alternative to save one of the least known ecosystems on Earth.
Since 1996, we have been working with third parties in this part of southern Bolivia, committed to reduce solid waste, save water and energy as part of their services, parties that are also interested in implementing sustainable and responsible tourism in order to safeguard destinations, their nature and rich cultural heritage. Most of our business allies are native from Uyuni and several communities along the route, still inhabited by Quechua and Aymara people who inherited customs, traditions, and knowledge from pre-Columbian cultures that once occupied this beautiful region now visited by thousands of international travelers.

We also visit two important UNESCO sites: Potosi and Sucre--the official capital of Bolivia.

People

After medium or large-scale mining, there is no other more ideal economic activity more promising than sound tourism. In the last 30 years, tourism has become one of the best employers in Uyuni and Eduardo Avaroa Andean Fauna Reserve, two remote locations of South Bolivia where people is greatly dependent on scarce arable land and shallow wetlands higher than 3,800 m of altitude, not able to practice other economies more than llama and alpaca breeding by using large extensions of puna grasslands and also produce seasonal crops such as quinua and potato. Our operations involve locals from several Altiplano communities who drive 4WDs taking our tourists through a remarkable landscape featuring many nature spectacles found nowhere else on Earth, guides and cooks who service our 3 or 4-day tours all year round. Therefore, our operations have been for long securing jobs and enhancing more sustainable economies in the region.
Besides locals, we also work with other professionals in tourism, experienced birders, natural history guides, and conservationists like ourselves. Therefore, our involvement is transcending the mere goal of profit since we become integral part of an economic activity that, in practice, helps save the natural capital of Bolivia and also supports the medium and long-term effort to succeed in the implementation of sustainable tourism. We have seen positive changes in many years. More people, including women and young members of communities, and entire municipalities, are now more interested in becoming beneficiaries of responsible tourism.
We consider that each of our clients or travelers are important actors in the process of making tourism a genuine tool to secure the present and future economic, social and environmental sustainability of rural inhabitants of remote locations, who still thrive to economically survive in one of the most difficult and underdeveloped regions of South America.