The Spitting Llama book exchange

I love this little chain of 3 book exchanges!

I ran into one quite by accident in the town of Copacabana, which is on the square at Ave 6 de Agosto.

I traded 4 books I had brought with me from NYC (where people leave perfectly good books out on their stoop for people to take) and got a brand-new (to me) book Split Ends by British author Zoe Barnes. I also got a collection of stories that appeared in Seventeen magazine, published in 1951.

I got a biz card from the lady and found the even bigger Spitting Llama 2 blocks from my hotel when I returned to La Paz.

I exchanged 4 more books for 2 more kick-ass new-to-me books. Gotta love it!

How it works (from their website):

We have one of the best book exchanges in South America with over 6000 books in over 30 langauges in our stores. Our policy is simple; all of our books have a marked retail price and a 1 for 1 exchange gets you 50% off the marked price, 2 for 1 = FREE!

This does not apply to guidebooks and certain new or special titles that we import. We understand that some hotels and hostals offer this service for free as a perk to paying guests but remember that they charge for specialty service (lodging) and we must do the same because we are a bookstore and we strive to bring the absolute best selection of books to our customers.