Across Bolivia

Hi amigo's y amiga's,

Back in the air after some very intense weeks of travelling. I didn' have much time to write because i have been travelling with many people, and then you can't say, sorry folks, but we will have to stay here for a few days, because i want to write some stories for the people back home. Furtermore i was in a hurry because there were many roadblocks in the country, so we were forced to travel to the next place as soon as possible. The road could be closed the next day.

At the moment there is some rest, because the president from two weeks ago is no longer here, there is a new interim president, who is trying to find people for a new gouvernment,and until then it will be easy. What happens afterward, we will see. In Santa Cruz, i have the possibilty to get out of the country by three means (bus, plain, and train). If nothing happens during the next three days I will stay in Bolivia, otherwise probably it will be Brazil.

The last three weeks, the contrasts were big again. From the highlands to the tropics is a 40 degrees temperature difference, I walked in the highest city on earth, I visited churches in baroque-style (YES FOKKE!!), saw beautiful musea, visited a mine, and even shopped for clothes. And more landscapes, an old inca site, tree ferns, snakes, mosquitos, buterflies, beautiful ara's, waterfalls etc. etc. etc.

To me Bolivia is a paradise, and to be poor gets another perspective. I hope you like my new experiences!



Potosi


Potosi is the highest city on earth, it is situated more ca. 4100 meters above see level, which is 300 meters higher than Uyuni. The nights here are however less cold than in Uyuni.The main reason for coming here are the silver and tin mines.

Potosi was created by the Spanish in 1545, when they discovered the indians were digging for silver here, and it has been the biggest city of south America because of this. It is a lively and dirty city, and there are many old houses that evidently show there spanish influence. Because of this it is on the World heritage list of Unesco, but i doubt that the finances that should come with this, are arriving there.

I travel with Barbara and Walewein from Uyuni to Potosi along again a very beautiful road. The roads are not paved, all are sandy and dusty, many canyons and stone formations. Llama's are very frequent and have the same purpose as cows in Holland.


Uyuni to Sucre

The very old and not solid bus is stuffed with people that sometimes wear strange perfumes -they smell "somewhat" sour- and bolivian people are not very polite. A very old woman that hardly seams alive and looks sick is sitting on a bag. Some people support her to prevent her from falling on the floor. The younger bolivians are not thinking of giving her their place, and i decide that i'm too gray to have to be polite {one of my nieces thinks i will see abraham in the next few days, well that's wrong, it is methusalem!!).

Women that were doing business on the market the day before are stuffing their whole shop in the walkway of the bus, but fortunately we don't have a toilet, so there is no discussion about women wanting to go to the toilet. It is by the way a big fiesta going to the toilet in the first sanitary stop in a dusty village. I have to pay to clean the toilet!


Travelling in Bolivia

We cross a town where Butch Cassidy and the Sundance kid have showed up, and somewhere in this region they were shot and buried, but until now there graves have never been identified (wonder how they would do that, are they hoping to find McDonalds paper bags?).


Uyuni to Potosi2


Uyuni to Potosi2

In Potosi BB, WW and me decide to take a very crappy hotel that costs 15 boliviano's (1.5 euro). (Bolivia is extremely cheap, here are some prices Irish coffee 6 boliviano's, dinner 20 bol. (and less!), breakfast 15 bol. and going by bus (7 hours) will cost you 30 bol!). Hot showers can be quite risky here. The water is heated through electricity, and the element is not further away than 20 cm from the water beam. You can change the settings, and then you can see a little spark. Until now I haven't been electrocuted so probably the certification instances here perform good deeds!

Another interesting thing is the flushing system of the toilets. There is a big barrrel standing inside the washing room, and there is even a bucket. So pulling the plug is replaced by active flushing! In the end it is more or less the same. Something goes away, if you're lucky.

Barbara first experience with Potosi is less nice. After calling to Holland, the bill is much higher than expected, and the lady of the phone shop is evidently lying about this. (before calling she told BB that is was 1 boliviano per minute, the machine while calling shows 6 bol per minute, and the lady says that that is not her problem, BB should have looked at the what the phone said, "I know nothing, I'm Manuela from Barcelona") Fucking bitch!


Spanish buildings in Potosi


Back to the silver mines (BB and WW have left). I book a tour with Silver Tours (it's fun to read their website, it seems i missed the Potosi beauties, to me the women there looked more like beer tables), and our Guide Osvaldo brings us first to a shop to buy gifts for the miners. We buy them coca leaves, lemonade, handshoes, and sigarettes, and sometimes agencies buy dynamite to have a real party down there in the dark.


Osvaldo shows the mine

The tour to the mines is impressing. Miners work hard here, 6 days a week, at least 12 days an hour, and the maximum salary is 1300 boliviano's (130 euro) a month for drilling which is hard work. The guys that are pushing wagons which weigh about 1500 kg, and that need to be pushed 1500 meters earn 800 boliviano´s. Most work is done without machines.


Lorrie pushers

The conditions in the mine are not the way the Dutch health authorities would like to see it, and many man never reach the age of 45. On the question why people like to work here, the answer is a quite simple. It is a well payed job. The average wage in Bolivia is 400 boliviano's.

By the way, the conditions in this mine are good compared to the normal standards. The men are working in a cooperative and are proud to work here. Other mines in this mountain (about 50 mines,and 8000 mineworkers) don't care less about proper working conditions,and it is said that there are children working (4 years and older) and because they are small they are more able to work with dynamite (creeping through holes etc.). To keep the children going they are fed coca leaves.

Leaving the mine my eyes hurt because of the daylight, and i'm glad that somebody is willing to take a picture of me!


Spot the looney



Sucre

Sucre is the juridic capital of Bolivia and a very pleasant and clean place. One of the main characteristics of Sucre is that most of the buidings in the centre are white. In Sucre I will stay a week to visit all the churches and musea, and to enjoy the atmosphere of the city that is quite relaxed. Also Sucre is on the Unesco list, and here they probably spend some money than in Potosi. In Sucre I stay in hostel Pachamama for the enourmous som of 40 bol a day. Sucre is not only beautiful. You find many beggars, and some are in a very poor condition. One poor woman had a tape where used (?) to be a nose and where normally would have been eyes, there was tissue as if the eyes never had formed.


White sucre

The first two days they have festivities in Sucre. They celebrate indepence day (25th en 26th of may) and for this reason the president comes to town. I have the honour of seeing the man twice incognito. The first time on the 25th, he's recognized by a woman standing next to me, and so he's friendly waving towards her (or did he recognize my noble looks!?). They second time is very funny. On the 26th he's leaving for La Paz in a normal car, but he's reckognized by a woman, who's running towards his car begging for money, and she putes her hand through the open window. The president is clearly embarrassed, and waves towards his wife to solve the problem. I think the beggar had caviar that evening!


The (former) president

Because of the festivities, all the important people of Sucre have the honour to march in three different parades, the biggest parade on the 26th when the president of Bolivia is in town. He's watching the parade from the balcony of the Casa de la Independencia. I'm impressed by the courageous Bolivian Army! Incredibly they never won a battle, and because of this allmost all neighbours have taken a part of the former country.

I also like their traditions. All the music bands (harmonie orkesten met dansmariekes) dress up like the european counterparts, and in a climate where temperatures easily reach 30 degrees, that can be quite an erotic sight (sorry boys and girls the picture were censored by the web provider!). During these days you hardly notice anything of the ongoing tensions in Bolivia that allready last more than 4 weeks. Only one time there is a demonstration, and immedeately this results in the formation of a mobile brigade.


Tensions in sucre

Time to do something cultural, and in Sucre there is much to see. They have more churches than inhabitants and most of these churches were build before 1800 and have a baroque interior. One of these churches (the cathedral) is stunning.


The Cathedral

In the museum belonging to this church you can find golden crucifixes with a lot of gem stones, silver chalices,and I even think you can find the holy grail here. A collection of some fine paintings, one of the painters is Viti (?) and as a real connaisseur i immeadeately recognize the influence of Rafael.

There are some strange artifacts, a man and a woman lying behind glass ( i guess they are saints), suggesting that they are mummies, but it seems they are statues made by using an special technique. Unfortunately i'm not allowed to make pictures of all the treasures of Ali Baba, so secretely i only can take one picture, when the guard isn't looking.


The museum of the cathedral

Then quick to Virgen de Guadalupe (or. 1601), which is in the chapel of this cathedral. This virgen certainly has many admirers! She wears a cloth (actually she is a cloth), and there are pearls, diamants, briljants, opals, and all the gem stones you can think of. Well when this virgin is an old spinster, she won't be having trouble cashing her juwelry!

Finally they bring me to the catedral itself, and this church is a masterpiece. It is unlike most european churches very light, most of the interior is white, with some light yellow, and the choir is made of pure gold. Furthermore the wooden panels in the back,and on the side are covered by thin gold (actually all the churches I saw in Sucre have these type of all panels, see picture for example). Yes friends, this sceptic soul is touched by the beauty of this church.


Church Merced,example of golden backpanel.


Church San Franscico, example of golden sitepanel with wooden statues


In these days Sucre must have been very rich, because in the casa de la libertad you can find many valuable objects. Visit there website for more information. I liked the Salón de la Independencia where in 1825 the Indepence of Bolivia was proclamed. The original act can be found in this salon as well as a painting of simon bolivar, one of the founders of bolivia. Furthermore many classic interiors, old music instruments, some bad paintings of Bolivian heroes, and what i found very illustrative were the paintings of former presidents. They had many, and this illustrates the instable gouvernments this country normally has.


Casa de la Libertad


Salon de la Indenpendencia


- Dino tracks

This day together with Walewein and Barbara (who i meet again in Sucre) we go to the dinotracks. We all have some difficulties starting the day because we discovered they have CAPAIRINHA here (and that they only cost 8 bol.)!!!!

[i had a very nice dinner that evening Pique a lo Macho, here is the receipe pieces of suasage, small pieces of beef, onions, patatoes, paprika's, spicy pepers in a gravy sauce, bon appetit}.

Outside Sucre they discovered dinosaur tracks. A cement factory was digging up cement when they reached a layer which shows clear marks of dinosaur feet. The wall is about 500 meters wide and 200 meters high.Six species have been identified (one of them titanosaurs, another was bipedal carnivorous dinosaur), and more then 300 different species seem to have been here, the guides say. Around 5000 footprints can be found and what is very interesting, the pictures prove that these dinosaurs where excellent mountaneers! I wonder if Darwin has an explanation for this very interesting phenomenon?


Dinoos are mountaneers!


Detail


- Textile museum

One of the highlights of Sucre is the textile museum (they have an excellent website). The museum is set up by Bolivian antropologists and they give much information about the culture of weaving. The exposition shows the weavings of two different groups, the Jalq'a and the Tarabuco. The patterns are very complicated and through the patterns the makers tell stories. Many symbols are used, and weaving is not only making clothes, it gives information about their spiritual world (gods, ancestors, underworld, upperworld, forces of nature, as well as obscure feelings and strange forces). Similar elements can be found in the use of music, so during the exposition you get a nice picture of the integration of these elements in the way of living of the Andes tribes. I was deeply touched by the craftmanship, and the way of exposing the weavings. Wow!!


Tarabuco weaving


Jalq'a weaving

My emotions force me to drink a few Caipirinha's that night, and yes that Pique the Lomo was again excellent. This time Andy, Tanja, Sonja en Stephan, four germans that i met in the bus to Sucre join me in my quest in who can drink the most Caipirinha's. I don't know if i won, but Tanja has problems that night to fall asleep. The bed turns too much.

The following morning they leave together with WW and BB. I stay a few days longer in Sucre because I'm struck by culture!

- Tarabuco

One of my last days in Sucre I take the bus to Tarabuco, on sundays there is a market, and inspired by BB and WW, i decide to buy some souvenirs, and secretely i hope to buy some Tarabuco weavings (that were very expensive in the textile museum). The souvenirs I buy, the weavings i don't, because they have not that quality. The goods here are extremely cheap and you can get at least 30% off the price they ask


Market in Tarabuco

Walking through Tarabuco, i suddenly have the feeling i'm looking at an old painting (around 1800 or before that). The road is sandy, and from everywhere people are coming on foot, and there goods are carried by donkeys.


Going back in time

It is again difficult to make pictures, people don't like that here, so only by pretending to look through my camera and further doing nothing i sometimes can fool them.


Secret picture



Tarabuco to Sucre


Many impressions of Sucre are still not here. Too much to write about. Four things have to mentioned.


Juan Pablo II and the Madonna


The girl selling dead shaved rats on the foodmarket (i was not quick enough to make a picture, half an hour later the rats were sold, they probably looked very tasty).

A few Mennonites walking around in Sucre, i still wonder how they got there, they dress up in very old fashioned clothes, the women wearing very old fashioned dresses, always their head covered with a skarf (yes it looks like a sort of Burqa), the men look like farmers, and they speak a kind of German, they look strange in a way, the women always walking behind the man, looking a littlebit not at ease {later i meet Mennonites in San Ignacio and in San Cruz, and again the same clothes and bodylanguage}.

The many little boys working as shoe polishers, always telling me that my shoes were very dirty (which is true), and that they should be polished (which is my own business), one of these boys being very comercial offered me spanish lessons for 20 bol. an hour! Another tried to convince me to polish my plastic flip flops!

The many beggars, mainly women with little children, sometimes they have four little children. Some really are very poor,and i remember a young man (around 25) that was eating food from a plastic bag, and it looked like food that was thrown away by a restaurant in the garbage can. The man suddenly walked away, and hid the food in his clothes. A few minutes later a dog came by, and found the food.............


On monday, after a week Sucre i have seen enough culture, and take the bus to samaipata, a journey of 12 hours, where i arrive the next morning at 5 am. This busride was again an experience. Although it was very dark i could see parts of the road. It was a narrow (sandy) path and sometimes it was not more than 3 meters wide. It went up and down, so i imagine that during daytime it should have looked wonderful. Futhermore it was a very old and smelly bus, and not very confortable. I didn't care.

Someone who did, was sitting two chairs apart from me. When we left, I noticed a young woman crying. There was a beautiful little baby, lying on one of the chairs, and obviously this young women was leaving the baby to her mother, for what sort of reason. Grandma had all the stuff to be prepared for the journey (food, dipers, wather, two bags full of baby stuff). In the beginning everything went well, the baby was happy, grandmother was hugging the kid, an idyllic picture. Then it became dark, and the baby started crying. Grandma was trying to comfort the kid, but alas the baby started crying louder and louder.....

Grandma got confused, suddenly she asked the woman in front of her to take care of it, and then she opened the window and started vomiting. After a while she recovered a little bit asked the baby back, that still was crying, and then she made a bottle of milk, and started to feed the kid that wasn't very happy with this treat, because you could here it protesting, but grondmother didn't care and pushed the bottle deeper and deeper, the baby crying harder and harder. Sometimes grandma tossed the baby over, it looked that she was throwing a rugby ball up, it didn't look very caring, it looked like panic. An amusing site.

One of the woman in front had an idea,and asked the driver to put on some light and immedeately after that the child got silent. Grandmother however suddenly got green again, gave the child away to the woman in front, and started vomiting again, and again and again. She forgot the little chi}ld, and for the next three hours she was lying for dead, now and then opening the window, to get rid of her stomach fluids, sometimes spreading a little sour smell through the bus. Welcome to adventure!



Samaipata


Samaipata is situated 1650 meters above sea level, and i'm out of the altiplano, and guess what!? I see trees, the hills looke green, and it smells like the................ TROPICS. After four months travelling, finally! It is a small and peacefull village, rather primitive, with a little plaza, some old hotels, most of the roads are not paved, and the atmosphere is rural.

The main reasons for going to Samaipata are Parque Nacional Amboro, and El Fuerte. In the night i book a two day-one night tour to this parque, together with Brigitte, a german girl, and two israeli's (Jail and Cyvan). We go with Roadrunners, our guide is Olav, an Austrian that is living in Samaipata for ten years.


Cyvan, Jail, Brigitte, and me


- Parque Nacional Amboro


to Amboro

In a truck we drive to Amboro. It's about 1,5 hours driving on a bumpy road, that goes through strolling green hills. We are going to visit a cloud forest. A cloud forest is a forest that is most of the time surrounded by clouds, can be very wet, but always is humid, and most of the times the temperatures are very mild (around 20 degrees Celcius).


Cloudforest

We enter the forest and find traces of a great cat, probably a Puma or Jaguar. Unfortunately we don't see them, only more traces of cats, and tapirs. The forest has a dense vegetation, and because of the humid conditions you can find ferns, the main attraction of this forest. It are tree ferns. Very big ferns with a wooden stem, the ferms can reach heights of more than 15 meters (I estimate).


Treefern

In some places you can find them grouped together, and that is like a time travel, because you then can see a situation that could have occured more than 60 million years ago, because these plants were also growing then.


Treefern forest

Sometimes it is incredible how many plants are growing in a small place on top of each other. It is more an orgy of plant sex! (orgien orgien geef mij orgien!)


Plant sex

At the end of the day we make our camp in the bush on a small plateau. We walk to a view out point where we can see some mountains called the devils touth, but it is very clouded, so the view is not that good. During the night we roast some sausages above the camp fire and Olav braught some Rum limon, and we have beer! During the night everything is very quiet, no spiders, jaguars or snakes, not even a fake one!

Next day we make a different hike back to our truck, and we find some passion flowers, a very beautiful flower, that you can buy in Holland in a flower shop, and on the way back to samaipata we find big cactuses (but totally different from the cactuses from Isla del Pescado).


Big cactuses

The way back to Samaipata is beautiful because of the light. That's what I love the most about the tropics, the intense green colours, that you only find in Holland in the beginning of spring.


The green tropics


- El Fuerte


Landscape around El Fuerte

El Fuerte is situated 10 km outside Samaipata. A taxi brings me there. El Fuerte is a place that was inhabited by Inca's but probably it is much older, dating back from at least 800 AD. The inca's used it until 1530 when the spanjards arrived, destroyed it like good christians, and turned it into a fort.They left in 1629.

The rocks of El Fuerte have many carvings, that are religious symbouls, for instance you can see 2 puma symbols (forceness and agility), a jaguar symbol (vital force) and a snake symbol (fertility and eternity). On the rock there are special places for the priest to stand, and actually of one of these points they made a replica in Samaipata. (Brigitte showed me this earlier one night before. If you are standing exactly in the middle of this spot and you start to speak, it seems that you are speaking through a microphone. How it works..............?)


El Fuerte

In the rocks you can see niches that were placed were the Inca priests placed golden statues, and there were places where they stored food for offerings. Down the mountain people were living in small houses. El Fuerte is still overgrown with a thick vegetation, but archeologist believe that underneath it is much more to find. The place could be as big as Machu Pichu. Because now it is on the world heritage list, people hope to attract funds to excavate more.


Niches

That night I go with Brigitte to Landhaus, a restaurant and hotel, run by a german that is living here for 20 years. We hear about the political situation, and we are advised to leave the country, because many places are or will be blocked, and we wouldn't be able to get out of the country anymore. People are afraid of civil war. The son of the german is less pessimistic and invites us to his bar 'the Musquito', and what is the best news of all, they have CAPAIRINHA!


Bromelia's near el Fuerte

In the Musquito we meet Olav again, and a dutch guy, who works in Bolivia, so it is Capairinha time!! I meet a bolivian woman that is back in Bolivia after 30 years of travelling, and now is doing some painting, giving some Spanish lessons, and all sorts of other stuff to stay alive. Brigitte drinks far too many C's but is able to walk home. Next day i leave my bed around 1 o'clock pm. Those Capairinha's (and the wine and the beer and the......) really were tasty!


El Fuerte to Samaipata


Cloud formations

Next day Brigitte and I decide to go to Santa Cruz (160 km away). There are no buses -because the roads are blocked- and we hire a taxi together with 2 french people. The road goes through rainforest, and through breathtaking hills. Bolivia is always a fiesta to travel through, the nature is incredible.


Samaipata to Santa Cruz

We drive towards the blockkade and get out of the taxi (20 km before Santa Cruz). The blockkade is rather hilarious, some tree trunks, a few tires, some stones and about 100 people sitting on the road. It seems quite peaceful, there are people selling food and 300 meters further there are taxi's waiting to bring us to Santa cruz, where we arrive after half an hour. Welcome to Santa Cruz.

The main reasons for going to Santa Cruz are Noel Kempf, they have a train station, they have an airport, and it is close to Brazil (20 hours by train). So if things really get out of hand, we have a few options. We go to a hostel called Residencia Bolivar and decide to inform around at the busstation. We are joined by Genevieve, a canadian girl, who is only staying in Bolivia for two weeks, and who wants to join us to Noel Kempf. In the busstation we hear that there is a bus to San Ignacio, and it is not sure that next day there will be a bus to San Ignacio (the road might be blocked). So we buy a busticket, and leave the same night to San Ignacio de Velasco.

Another 12 hours on the bus. The bus takes an alternative road because of the blockkades, and this means another sandy bumpy road, so this time it is not easy to sleep. Next day we arrive in San Ignacio, which is one of the seven former Jesuit colonies in the region (later more about this).


San Ignacio

In SI we take the Residencia Betania, a neat place with real and working hot showers. That was a long time ago, I actually had a shower with running hot water instead of dripping hot water!. I didn't have to pull the switch every two seconds when i wanted the apparatus to work. It has a nice patio too, and that for only 20 bolivianos a night. Further down the road you can have breakfast for 10 bolivianos and if you go to the market it can even be 2 bolianos voor 2 cafe and two big pieces of cake. Yes Bolivia is a country for big spenders.

We stroll around SI, we are now in the tropics, and that means that it is much warmer, a littlebit more humid, and the nights here are wonderful. Allways walking around with shorts and a T-shirt, who needs more, not me.
We find a wild grapefruit tree, especially a favorite fruit of Genevieve, but i admit that the grapefruits here are much tastier than in Holland. (later in Noel Kempf we find a grapefruit tree with enormous grape fruits, that are even better, and everything is free to grab, and it is not proletarisch winkelen!). Later during the day, we decide to go the next morning to Noel Kemp Mercado, the national park.

(Attention Seija, this is how it works). We hire a local chauffeur that will bring us to the park, and brings us to different places within the park. This costs 100 dollar per person. We buy lots of food for 3 days for three people (later it turns out te be food for almost four days for 5 people). In the park we will hire a guide (10 dollar a day), cooking material (5 dollar a day) and tents (2 dollar a day).


TO NOEL KEMP MERCADO


Pueblo going to Noel Kempf

Next day we leave with Antonio, our driver to the park. It is 12 hours driving to the entrance of the park, about 300 km from SI, and it is in the northeast corner of Bolivia. The road is very bad, and already after 1,5 hours we get a flat tire. No worries though, because after reparing this, we drive towards a little village Santa Rosa where there is a handy man, who fixes the tire, we have dinner in the mean time, and we enjoy making pictures of young children that don't see foreigners that often.

Curious children

Another one hours further on an even more worse road, we have trouble with the oil filter so in a next village Antonio starts reparing it, while we are looking at the pigs, walking around freely, I speak with a drunk old man, who is inviting me to buy him some beer, and Brigitte and Genevieve are talking with the little children. The village is very poor, but the atmosphere is very relaxed. It probably is always siesta here.

The last 35 km (when it is allready dark) we drive on some sort of dirt road through a forest, just big enough for one car, driving through bushes, scaring away the birds that fly for their lives, awakened by the lights of our car. Antonio our driver, however knows quite well wat he is doing, and he never takes any risk, stopping before every hole and crack in the road.

That night we arrive in Los Fierros, the start of Noel Kempf Mercado, and we sleep on a farm. For the tourists they made a special place with a dormitory and a eating place. It is pleasant to stay there.

Sleeping in Los Fierros

I awake early. This is a real farm, so that damn cocks start BARKING at five O' clock. Now i now why the Japs are inventing robot animals! As soon as the cocks start their day, all other animals start competing who can be the loudest, so they start howling, booying, (pigs) crying, and also the chicken, goose and ducks do there best to awake everybody. On top of that some birds make sounds as if they are carrying a laser gun, shooting there rivals out of the next tree. For people that know me, my snoaring would sound like the sweet sounds of a harp, compared to this cacophony.

Farm in Los Fierros

We meet Juan, our guide and drive the last hour to Noel Kemp, and start our adventure.

Noel Kempf Park

We enter Noel Kemp by using a primitive vat? (pont), crossing a beautiful river - the green colours there...........!!- and drive another hour before we start our hike. Because we will sleep in the park, we have to carry a tent, cooking material, food and water for almost two days, so probably i'm carrying ca. 20 kilogram on my back. Fortunately it is only a two hours walk to our first camp of that day, so it is not that difficult.

Genevieve and Brigitte

During this walk we first see a fox, then spider monkeys, traces of tapirs, hear birds making sounds as if they are whistling to Brigitte and Genevieve (sexist birds!, i presume they are a sort of beo's), and we see an enormous amount and variety of butterflies. Our favourite is a 10 cm big butterfly that i allready saw a year ago in Tijuca, when Niqui and I made a hike in the park there. Every time you see that butterfly you feel like you watch a beautiful artwork, the sensation is something like WOOOOWWWWWW!.

Butterfly

When we enter the camp, we are greeted by thousands of butterflies that probably are looking for food there. We leave our backpacks in the camp, and walk for another 1 hour to see one of the attractions of Noel Kemp, the waterfall Encanta. This waterfall is falling from a table mountain, and is ca. 80 meters high. There is a small lake in front of it, the water is very cold, but is it gorgeous to jump into the water.

Waterfall Encanta

I swim towards the waterfall, and shower in it. It is an adventure standing there. Because of the force of the falling water, it is more or less storming, and my back gets sandblasted. But the water of the fall is a littlebit warmer then the lake so it is a wonderful experience.

On our way back we discover why this is a tropical RAINforest. Out of nowhere it starts to rain, so with everything wet (and stinking) we get back in our camp, where we build up our tents underneath a wooden roof. We have so much food that Antonio and Juan join our meal of pasta and Tuna (thanks Chris.), and vegetables, AND a bottle of wine. After we have finished this one, we start on the bottle of Wodka Lemon, which was costing not more than 15 bol a liter! Thanks to Juan and especially Antonio we speak spanish all night, a very good learning school, what will be four days in the jungle.

Noel Kempf2

The next day starts with bees! Lots of bees, thousands of bees, millions of bees....... They are attracted by our clothes, that are spreading yummy fragances. Everything is muddy, wet, and sweaty, and we smell as if we have been carrying around dead and disintegrating bodies for at least one year. Even i am aware that people that have diarrhoea and missed the toilet are much better travelling companions than our group. We could win a war, carrying this smell, no one of our opponents would turn up.

I love the smell of stinking clothes

We walk back to our car, drive for an hour, and then we start walking towards the next camp, which is close to another highlight of Noel Kemp, the meseta. This time the path is much more difficult to walk on, it is sometimes narrow, and there is a lot of vegetation.

Dense vegetation

We see some spider monkees, and hear the toucans making cracking noises. I have for the first time ever the feeling that this is a real tropical rainforest, it is warm, humid and we are really far away from civilazation. We see big trees, although the rainforest is different compared to the tropical rainforest in the Amazone area. There the trees are higher, and the canopy has less plants, because the trees take away most of the light. (It was also much more touristic, and the walks were much easier, close to Manaus).

Big tree and me

It is a relative short walk towards the second camp, although the last part is going up steeply. In this camp we are welcomed by many insects. They probably got a message from the bees in camp one, so here apart from tonnes of bees, that are inspecting our smelly rags intensively, we are sexually harrased by tiny little flies, that like to creep into your ears and eyes. Wasps also show interest, and we see (if not having tiny flies in our eyes) ants, an incredible amount of different species of flies, and i don't know what else that can creep and fly on earth. They all have gathered here to help us free from our flesh, might we decide to drop dead.

Hell this is the first time that i am not very amused in nature, but a biologist would love this place.

O I forgot to mention ticks, these tiny insects have the habit to attach to your skin, and after a while they start digging into it deeper and deeper until.......... If you want to know more, go to the link or search via google what they can do. Genevieve was the lucky owner of at least 10 ticks the first night, and i noticed my first tick (not my first sony) after swimming into the little river in this camp. I just was carrying three so it was not a world record. Thank god there is DEET.

Because of the threatening rain we eat early and then Brigitte discovers a snake, lying next to the little river. According to Antonio this is a Bushmaster (don't know the local name), but according to Philip, an american we meet a few days later, this is the most dangerous snake there is, and that he would love to see one of those. Luckily this was only a baby, about 40 centimeters in length. Probably it wasn't looking for us but for some tiny frogs or toads that were playing next to the water.

Bushmaster snake?

At the end of the day we climb a part of the meseta to watch the sunset (attention folks, another picture of a sunset will follow very soon after this sentence. And we drink some Wodka lemon to end a very pleasant and inspiring day.

Meseta sunset

Our third day in Noel Kemp will be a long one. We start to walk at 7 O'clock am, and climb to the top of the meseta, some 600 meters higher.

The meseta and the rainforest 1

When standing on the rim, down below us we see the tropical rainforest, while the ara's start migrating from the Meseta to the rainforest for having desayuno.

View from the meseta

The meseta itself is totally different. It reminds me of Africa, because of its Savannah landscape. The biggest difference is the lack of the enourmous amounts of animals you for instance can see in the Serengeti.

Meseta landscape

However during this time of the day, the weather is lovely, there is a tiny breeze, and enjoy the environment. First we walk towards a little stream where some palmtrees are standing, and while we approach the trees we are being welcomed by shouting parrots, that demand our departure. They are very nervous, and it is funny to see that they (it is always a pair) are reassuring by touching each other. It is obvious they have kids.

They are beautiful. Blue backs, yellow bellies, and a blue head, with some yellow. We stay here 30 minutes, while at least 10 parrots are flying around us, trying to confuse the intruders.

Nervous parrots

We now walk ca. 1,5 hours along the meseta, enjoying the landscape until we reach a second forest, that is bigger. Here it is markedly more humid, and the change is sudden and instant. Again a different ecosystem here with a lot of flowers and butterflies. Noel Kemp really is the park if you love Mariposas.

Juan, our guide, knows a place 30 minutes further where we can swim and ask us if we want to go there, and well why not, we are not having a date this night, so lets go......

Paradaiso

The spot turns out to be very idyllic. A small lake, a little stream, ticks, one palm tree. In this lake there are even sardinas, and there is a small waterfall. The water is cool and cristal clear. In this lovely spot we stay about an hour, and then we walk back in three hours to our camp site.

Children having fun while playing in the water

Paradaiso 2

Savannah Landscape

I'm not dirty

In the camp we our welcomed back by our insect friends, who really missed us dearly, and do a thorough research on us! We pack our stuff and walk another 1,5 hours to the car. After 8-9 hours walking it is relieve to get to the car. The car brings us to the last camp Florida, where we arrive in the beginning of the evening.

Leaving the meseta

We are offered the cabanas, and there is a real kitchen, they even have cold showers, so we have a very pleasant night, discussing if we would stay another day in Noel Kemp, and watching the stars that are again very bright and in incredible amounts. My back is hurting, the walk was very long today, and i have been carrying a backpack all day.

We decide to stay another day and make a short walk around Florida where Juan shows us rubber trees, and palms trees that you can eat, and how to prepare. The eatable palms are called palmitas. We find a castle of spider webs. In this castle about 200 little spiders live until mothers decide they are big enough to live on their own, and we search anacondas along a small stream, but unfortunately we don't find any. When we are back we meet Americans that flew in by airplane that tell us that that Bolivia has a new temporary president, that there are no more blockkades, and everything is quiet. We can go back!

Butterfly in Florida

We drive back to los Fierros. This village (well village) is very small and the people here live as farmers. It is part of Noel Kempf, and it is situated next to a river. So we swim in the river, and get a decent bath after 4 days sweating. It is a primitive and peaceful community and you wonder why people ever decide to leave this place to build ugly big cities, far away from nature. Apart from electricity and cars (apart from the roman law, and aquaducts and .... and.... and.... and... what did the romans do for us!!), the people here live like their ancestor thousands of years ago. Only those damned cocks before dawn, they shoot do something about them!

Pueblo los Fierros

At the end of the day we canoo with Juan on the river, and see many birds (weaver birds, king fishers), and enjoy the peace and the sunset (oh oh should there come another picture here). On our way back i see an army of red ants marching, and that is impressive! It is like the track of the wildebeest in Kenia, but then different.

The river next to Los Fierros

Sunset in Los Fierros

At night we go fishing and watch kayman. We see fireflies and glowing worms(?), and falling stars. Phil, the american that had an accident that day, is a funny guy. He's fishing with a bait so big that he could catch a shark of 10 meters, he is very noisy scaring all life around the boat away, and when he has decided he doesn't want to fish anymore, he immedeately falls asleep, and starts snoaring in a way that i think we found ourselves a motor for our canoo.

Sunrise in los Fierros1

Sunrise in Los Fieros 2

After 5 days we go back to San Ignacio. On our way back we see a tiny anteater, some little monkees, a turtle, and a deer.

The road to San Ignacio

Antonio our driver decides he has been proffessional long enough and in every little pueblo we come, he buys (us) some beer. In Santa Rosa we have lunch/dinner, and i order a large Capairinha (without ice), i think i have deserved it. Back in San Ignacio we have dinner, some capairinhas and Antonio shows us the Karaoke bar. I'm not sure but some of us are a littlebit drunk when they see there beds.

Buying beer here

Buying beer

Before we go back to Santa Cruz, we stay two more days in San Ignacio. San Ignacio is one of the 6 villages that were founded by Jesuites, and therefore in Santa Ana, San Josê de Chiquitos, Concepcion, San Rafael, San Miguel, and San Ignacio, there are some nice Churches to visit. Because of lack of money i only see the church in SI. It is not anymore the original building from somewhere around 1750, but they rebuilt the old church. In other villages, the churches are restored into their original state. The church in SI still gives a good impression of the former one,

San Ignacio church

and i especially like to wooden roof and constructions, that gives the church a warm appearance, and hey i like chalets in the alpes, so why not a wooden church!

Interior of the church

Inside the wooden/gold panels i allready saw in Sucre, and also here they love wooden statues, that normally you can see in Holland in the Efteling!

Interior2

Later that night we leave to Santa Cruz, from where i am now writing this story.
I would like to thank Barbara and Walewein, Andy, Stephan, Sonja and Tanja, Jail, and Chivan, Genevieve, Antonio, Juan and last but not least Brigitte and all the others i met during the last month, for their inspiring and nice company.


San Ignacio lake

Okee, i hope you made it to the end. This was a very long story, and i hope you didn't fall asleep too often (once is allowed). See you next time, probably still from Bolivia.

ciao! Wim

Los Endos