I am heading off to Bolivia in a couple of weeks and have
heard that it is hard to cash travellers cheques, can
anyone verify if this is true or not, also is it easy
enough to cash US $ and use your credit card, are there
cash machines to withdraw your money from if so is it
mainly the cities or anywhere??
Has anyone had major problems with the altitude?? Any help
appreciated..thanks
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Hi Angela,
Don't know about traveller's cheques or cash, as although we had them, it was very easy to get cash from ATM's in the major cities - in fact as we were on a world trip, it was one of the few places where my mastercard worked on my bank account rather than my credit account, visa worked perfectly. We had no problem with the altitude but there again we came Peru and had possibly got acclimatised there by stages by moving up in height by relatively small stages.
Cheers.
Travelers Checks are cashed at any bank or casa de cambio.
Bring in US dollars only...as holds true for all of Latin
America. Large US bills..50+100..are happily accepted but
only if totally free of any tears or marks. I had several
$100s that picked up a quarter inch wide black mark the
length of one side of the bill from my money belt and had a
very difficult time cashing them.
Dear Angela
I had no problems cashing US travellers cheques. I suggest
American Express although we had Visa cheques and managed
alright (not so easy in Peru with Visa in case you were
thinking of skipping across to Potosi or Cusco). US dollars
are widely accepted.
I didn't have problems with the altitude in La Paz but at
4,000 m if you are flying in from sea level you could
experience altitude problems. If this is the case maybe
you should seriously think about acclimatising at a lesser
altitude for a few days. Don't take it lightly if you feel
nauseous, light headed etc. as it can have serious
consequences.
Enjoy your holiday.
Hi,
American Express travellers cheques in US dollars are not a problem to cash, except for the odd tiny village. So bring US$ cash for those situations, and also for emergencies. Even many tour operators and some hotels will accept TC's directly for payment, they even prefer it to Bolivianos (pesos).
.
I had a headache for the first couple of days, and trouble concentrating and reading, and walking up hills. (I felt like a senior citizen all of a sudden!) It got better with time.
Drinking lots of clean water and (coca) tea should help. Do not take medicine to mask the symptoms. Altitude sickness can be fatal so you need the symptoms to tell you whether you can still take it or not. Descending may be necessary, even a few hundred meters could help (it's the plce you sleep at that counts.)
Read the Health pages for more info (this site, or guidebook).
It is not totally easy to cash TC's in La Paz but after some
investigating I discovered that is no problem at the Banco
de la Nacion Argentina on the Prado.