Maybe I just have a soft spot for lost causes but I think there's something weirdly poignant about the efforts of Bolivia--a landlocked country--to build up its navy:

Beyond the ice-capped peaks to the west lay their object of longing, the Pacific ocean, but Bolivia's navy was marooned and landlocked at Lake Titicaca, 3,800 metres (12,470ft) above sea level in the Andes.

"I've never seen the sea," sighed Wilmer Camargo, 18, a conscript sailor in navy blue uniform. "But when I do I would like it to be a Bolivian sea."

He spoke for a nation. South America's poorest country lost its coast in a 1879-1884 war with Chile and wants it back. La Fuerza Naval Boliviana exists to keep that hope alive by cultivating a maritime conscience and end the "enclaustramiento".

The navy's purpose is mostly aspirational, but it keeps busy by patrolling the country's 5,000 miles of rivers for smugglers and will soon join an international peacekeeping force in Haiti, its first overseas (or any seas) deployment.