'My family are eating one meal a day': Bolivian tour guides on the reality of travel restrictions
Bolivia, one of the poorest countries in South America, was having a tourism mini-boom till Covid-19 struck. Two local guides tell Chris Moss about the devastating impact of the pandemic.
‘I’ve received just €60 in government support all year’
Mariela Zuleta, 44, from La Paz, Bolivia:
“I studied sociology and tourism administration at university. I’m also a musician and incorporate my art into my tourism work.
“I’ve worked as a freelance tour guide since 2008. I lived in Bermuda, where I worked in the hospitality industry from 2009 to 2015. I set up my own company in 2017. Here in Bolivia, I’m a cultural tour guide, doing most of my work around Lake Titicaca, the Uyuni salt flat, Potosí, Sucre and Tiwanaku. I’ve also guided in Cuzco, Machu Picchu, Santiago de Chile and Easter Island.
“When I worked for Crillon, a major tourism agency in La Paz, I worked as a guide for Abercrombie & Kent, Audley, Kuoni and Journey Latin America from the UK; since I started flying solo, my most important European customers are Cultours from Denmark and Latin Reiser from Norway.
“I was doing lovely before the Covid-19 crisis, so I’m one of the lucky ones that had enough savings to get by this year.
“I haven’t had any income at all since March. As my company is just me, I’ve been able to pay bills and keep up tax commitments without having to close down, which is not the case for most of my colleagues in the sector.
“Unfortunately, we had a coup d’état a few months before the crisis of Covid-19 started, and had one of the worst administrations in power in our history. They approved one single help-voucher equivalent to €60 for any citizen that was jobless.
“After the quarantine was decreed on March 21, we didn’t get any more tourists. My last customers from Taiwan left on March 18. La Paz, like most cities in the world under quarantine, felt like a dystopian ghost town in a Philip K. Dick story.
“As the months went by, many of my colleagues in the tourism and hospitality industry closed their businesses. The luckiest ones had their tours postponed until 2021 and are struggling to hang on while these rough times dissipate.
“Many guides and drivers are working in gastronomy, from their homes and via social networks. I know one colleague that was able to successfully reinvent their business: they take dogs for amazing adventures in the mountains!
“Currently I don’t have a paying job, I do some translations from Spanish to English, but mainly I am focused on my financially nonproductive passion: music. I’m also in the process of reinventing my business into a more virtual form with the purpose of adapting to the new order.
“The blow to the economy is devastating and, sadly, tourism is one of the industries that probably will take longer to recover. The coup-plotters from the last government played their part in destroying the economy in less than a year with countless episodes of corruption, but we just had elections in October and last week the new government assumed their functions, so there are new winds of change.
“The new president was elected with 55% of the voting population. We’re back on track.
“Bolivia was doing great before Covid-19 having being awarded consecutively, since 2017, the prize for Best Cultural Destination, Best Green Destination and Best Nature Destination in the World Travel Awards. Bolivia is an unforgettable experience that one should enjoy at least once in a lifetime.
“We have lowered significantly the rate of increase of the virus and developed international Covid-19 protocols. There are other factors that contributed to the control of the pandemic. In the case of the highlands, the dry weather and the altitude seem to have reduced virulence.
“Another factor is the size of the cities, none of them exceeds two million inhabitants. Also, there’s less movement of people in the country compared to most of our neighbours. In the countryside, many villages didn’t get a single case of Covid-19.
“This is probably the safest destination in South America. There are countless reasons to experience the heart of South America. With a new government, and the pandemic now under control, Bolivia looks to the future with great hope. We are only waiting for you.”
‘I was looking for other work and there was nothing’
Ovidio Valdes Amutari, 45, from Rurrenabaque, in the Upper Amazon, Bolivia:
“I come from an indigenous community in San José de Uchupiamonas. It was my dad’s idea for us to go into tourism. My brother, Sandro, is one of the best birdwatchers in Bolivia and the whole world. My mum is a cook. My dad is a musician. We all work as a group.
“I’ve been working at community-owned Chalalan Ecolodge in Madidi National Park as a guide since 1997. I studied biology, birds and natural history, and was the naturalist overseeing ecology. I take guests into the park, which opened in 1995, and we go to see monkeys, birds, sometimes jaguars if we’re lucky, and to row out on majestic lakes.
“Since Covid, those of us who live only from tourism have suffered a lot. The saddest thing has been the economic damage.
“As the pandemic progressed, money began to run out. In my family, we’ve been able to eat just one meal a day and there was one month when I had three days when I ate nothing but bread. I was looking for other work and there was nothing. Those that had a little gave what little the could, and that’s how we’ve been living. We’ve had no help at all from the government, as we have no insurance of any kind and we are not salaried workers. Tourists used to give us tips and that would help our families. Right now, none of us have any work.
“The lodge has been closed due to the pandemic. We’re all working together to reactivate tourism but things are really hard right now. ”