Highs and lows in Bolivia
St. John's man pedals through the tropics and soaks up history en route to the Amazon
MARTIN LOBIGS
Martin Lobigs continues his journey to the Amazon
Last updated at 8:49 AM on 12/04/08
Special to The Telegram
I biked out of Guayaramerin, a port on the river Mamoré in tropical Bolivia, on Jan. 20. The reddish, gritty dirt
didn't stick to the tires like the soil around Trinidad does when it rains, which is why I had been forced to take a
600-kilometre boat ride to get here.
Outside Guayaramerin, a motorcycle or car passed me every 20 minutes. I enjoyed the tranquility as much as
the verdant landscape. Cattle pasture alternates with forest, where every free space is filled with plants
dangling from trees and branches.
But even the jungle is inhabited. Footpaths or motorcycle trails lead to straw-roofed huts. Often, vegetation
prevents you from seeing the huts from the road. Crickets, flies, wasps, bees, insects and birds added a
frenetic vibrancy to the air. Unfortunately, I did not get to see the funny, crow-sized toucans with their
scythe-shaped, long yellow bills and feathers as black as poppy seeds. The ditches were full of water and
ranting frogs.
Thirty kilometres along, I came to Río Yata. It had been a ferry terminal on the 30-metre-wide Yata River and
began to thrive when a bridge was built some years ago.
Now Río Yata lives for traffic. Villagers have created a speed bump with dirt half a foot high, hoping drivers will
stop to buy a meal. Food stands, open on all sides and with roofs made from umbrella-sized leaves, are set up
beside the road near the hump. Under the roofs are wooden benches and tables where mothers and daughters
sell homemade food that they bring along in coolers and heat up in cauldrons that are black from wood fires.
I alighted and bought pacú, a common fish in the tropics that is related to the piranha. Like many fish here, it
can grow a metre long and weigh 20 kilograms. I got only a five-inch portion, but it came with pyramids of rice
and a slab of yucca and cost 10 Bolivianos ($1.20). To go with it, I bought a beer from a grocery store.
I am often grinned at when I order beer, as if I was a boozer. Some grins come with the question "Cerveza?" as
if I might have erred in having placed that order. The local custom is to have a soft drink, fruit juice or "cebada"
(a sweet drink made from boiled barley) with lunch.
The grins could be irritating. So, I would snap back, "Soy Canadiense" (I am Canadian) and explain that we can
handle more booze.
This reply would turn the grins to laughter. Common folk like a cocky remark. But I was telling the truth, too. I
witnessed locals get drunk on a 300-millilitre can of beer with less alcohol than your average Molson.
After I crossed the Río Yata, the terrain started to get hilly.
I went from an altitude of 120 metres above sea level at Guayaramerin, to 214 at Riberalta.
Thirty kilometres before Riberalta is the home of the Bolivian Fuerza Naval (naval force). I saw little watchtowers
of bamboo.
That Bolivia - which lost its coast to Chile in the War of the Pacific (1879-1884) - has a navy (about 4,000
soldiers with 170 vessels) makes sense if you realize the thousands of kilometres of navigable streams Bolivia
has in the Amazonian jungle.
Some rivers, like the Mamoré, Acre and Madera, form natural borders with Brazil and have been used by
smugglers and drug traffickers. There is also Lake Titicaca, the highest (3,800 metres above sea level)
freshwater lake in the world to patrol. It forms a border with Peru for 200 kilometres.
Near the naval site is the turnoff to Cachuela Esperanza (Rapids of Hope) on the Bení River. I regret that I did
not know anything about that place and ignored it as I drove by. It has a remarkable history.
The rapids were named by the British physician Edwin Heath (1827-1907) who studied tropical diseases and
came down the Bení by boat in 1880. Someone in his crew said that there was no hope of getting through the
rapids, so when the crew managed anyway, Heath called the rapids "Nueva Esperanza" (New Hope).
A couple of years later, the Bolivian entrepreneur and rubber king Nicolas Suárez Callaú (1851-1940) came
with a boatload of rubber bound for Europe via the Amazon River and the Atlantic Ocean. He decided to build a
little railway around the rapids and to build the town.
Cachuela Esperanza became a modern city with 3,000 families - about 10,000 people. The Suárez company
had 1,800 employees, with accountants from England. His assets exceeded 2 million British pounds. The
company owned five million hectares where it tapped the rubber tree (Hivea brasiliensis).
Cachuela Esperanza was one of the first places in South America with electricity. It had a theatre, tennis courts,
gardens and mansions with Arabic horses shipped up the Amazon, Madera and Bení rivers from Andalusia, and
a luxury hotel overlooking the Rapids of Hope. Millionaires came by sea planes.
In 1920, the town had one of the best hospitals in Latin America, with German doctors trained to treat tropical
diseases, and the first X-ray unit in Bolivia. Patients came from Peru, Colombia and Brazil.
When the rubber boom (1879-1912) burst, the Suárez family fostered the Brazil nut trade but could not stop the
town's demise. After the Second World War it got plundered by angry residents and became a ghost town. It is
now home to 200 people.
Perhaps a revival is due. The ruins are included in government tourist projects and some buildings have
already been renovated.
Editor's note: On Oct. 9, 2007, Martin Lobigs began a 4,000-kilometre bike ride from Argentina to Manaus,
Brazil - the metropolis of the Amazon. The journey is a continuation of the lifestyle he started in 1999 when he
left his home in St. John's to bike to Argentina, where he wrote "A Life on Wheels: Biking Alone from
Newfoundland to Latin America" (Creative Book Publishing, 2007).
12/04/08
