High and Dry

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Marines_de_Bolivia_desfilando.jpg
Image: Wikimedia Commons

Landlocked Bolivia has a navy. Though the South American nation lost its coast in a war with Chile in 1879, it maintains a 5,000-member “naval force,” a naval academy, and a fleet of 173 vessels, most of which patrol Lake Titicaca.

The loss of the coast is a subject of strong sentiment in the republic, which holds an annual “Day of the Sea.” Schoolchildren are taught that regaining access to the ocean is a patriotic duty.

“There is a clear historic injustice, and the Bolivian navy was created as a way of protesting before the whole world,” Capt. Remi de la Barra told the Guardian in 2008. “We are perfectly qualified to sail in any sea in the world. And sooner or later, God willing, we will be sailing in our own sea.”