La Paz...and other places not to take your baby

Looks like we're going to Bolivia! (We applied to go with our church awhile ago, but we weren't sure if we were going or not.) I will be really excited...when it sinks in. Hopefully, it sinks in soon since we're going next month. (Yikes.)

I was flipping through our South America Lonely Planet (ok, I keep bringing up books, maybe a reading list is in order) and in the health section, I noticed all these restrictions about where you shouldn't bring kids. Certain vaccinations aren't safe for babies under 9 months, so you can't bring them to areas where those are required. They're not sure how children under two react to high altitude, so don't take them up too high either. And the list went on. It made me wonder about the kids that live in those areas, but I suppose that's a different situation. In any case, now is a good time for us to go on this trip.

So for those of you who are also in a non-baby phase of life: take the opportunity to go somewhere that requires shots or medicine for altitude sickness. For those of you with little ones: put the Amazon and the Andes on the "when the kids get older" list. You could start planning now. You could even start to blog about what you're doing to prepare in the year(s) before your babies are old enough to visit Machu Picchu.


P.S. The photo is near San Ramon, Peru - another place not to take a baby. I saw some photos of Bolivia yesterday that looked very similar.