by chica suiza
(La Paz - Switzerland)
Bella, thanks so much for the good infos you gave me with your article: it should be posted on all the typical gringo-hostels in La Paz! I completely agree that tourists should be more responsable and behave more respectful facing locals and their costums. Althought I'm not a resident in Bolivia, I'm already travelling since 15 month in South America and came across alot of stupid tourists - or at least some of them behaving stupidly and need to bare the concequences this actions have for people who realy try to learn about the countries and life styles of the countries we are visitng. Sure it helps to speek the language fluently, but I'm always pretty shocked to see how better locals treat me when I tell them I'm not from an english speaking country.
I was hearing some month ago about this Prison tour and wanted to check online what it is all about. I will defenitely not take any attempt to improve foreigners imprisioned and hope they gonna continue to forbit this kind of tours.
I defenitly can't agree that it's not only the tourists fault: how can we travellers be so arrogant? We come from countries which aloud us to move freely and we have the economical possiblities to do so. But this also gives us responsibilities: we can't just hopping from countries to countries only to enjoy ourselves as cheap as possible. How many times did I hear travellers telling me they love Bolivia because it is so cheap? Is this all there is to tell about this amazing, so rich country and their lovely inhabitants? And isn't it crazy to pay 250 (if this is true) for a tour if you pay for accomodation only 15 and 4-course-meel 10? What arrogant and irresponsible message are we foreigners giving the locals? I'm truely ashamed sometimes of being a white tourist.
Only because there is corruption doesn't mean that we should support it!!