No more Big Macs

last updated 8 January 2015

La Paz

McDonald’s sold its last hamburger in Bolivia this week, as the restaurant chain began pulling out of seven countries where it couldn’t make a healthy profit. Thousands of Bolivians squeezed in on the La Paz outlet’s last day. Some were bitter the franchise was leaving after just seven years in the country. “McDonald’s threw us out like a Third World country in search of greener pastures,” said schoolteacher Angelica Carrasco. Burgers and fries never quite caught on in Bolivia, where the traditional diet is low on beef and high on yucca and maize. Also, the menu was pricey by the standards of South America’s poorest country. “It was very hard to get used to McDonald’s,” said Miriam Torres, a mother of two. “It’s like another planet.”