Tuesday - December 15, 2009
[62] Guayamerím, Riberalta, Yucumo, La Paz
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Written by Karin-Marijke
Written by Coen
by Karin-Marijke on Suite101.com
From Brazil to Bolivia
Guajará-mirim, the border town on the Brazilian side, may be a border crossing but there is no ferry to transport the Land Cruiser to the Bolivian side of the river – where the village is called Guayaramerím. Small passenger boats ply back and forth in large numbers but if we want to get our car across we'll first have to take a passenger boat and then arrange a ferry on the Bolivian side. In Guayaramerím Coen meets Carlos, a Colombian motorcyclist who has been waiting for two days for the ferry to cross – he encountered some of these endless protests and strikes Bolivia is infamous for. But today is his lucky day, and ours too, the ferry plies again and one and a half hours later our Land Cruiser hits Bolivian soil. After 4.5 months we managed to exit Brazil.
Miracle oh miracle, we obtain a 90 days' visa – the previous two times we were granted only 30 days. This is quite a relief and will save us a bureaucratic hassle in La Paz to extend our visas. Paying 37 eurocents per litre of diesel instead of almost a euro, as was the case in Brazil, is also a good start in a new country, of course.
Brazilian beer cans cross the river | 1000 kilometres of dust | yellow macaw eats corn | ocelot licking its paw
Make the world a better place
Just outside town we stop at Ecohotel Ituaba where we can spend the night in the parking lot. We assume the name 'eco' refers to the large number of animals that has their home here. Two yellow-blue and two red macaws, two toucans, two ocelots [small type of leopard], wild boars, a young tapir and a couple of emus. On the back of the menu an explanation is given about these animals. They have been confiscated by the authorities or have been found in the woods – wounded, but for whatever reason not taken by the hunters. The government obviously has no funds to support these animals and the sympathetic owner of this hotel has been granted permission to take care of them.
This way the owner wants to do his share in making the world a better place. "Please take pictures of the animals and show them to the world," is his request at the bottom of the explanation. An official note is attached to some of the cages, like to the ocelots', showing the permit but also giving the background of the animals. One of the ocelots grew up in just a cage of one square metre and was confiscated in a state of undernourishment and neglect. The other one had found its way to the henhouse of a farm and became a threat to itself (being shot by a farmer) and for this reason can no longer be set free.
We get up at six. The first thing we hear is some loud talking, almost shouting, which is quite unpleasant. It comes from a woman who is addressing a large group of people in the restaurant. They are older people from Brazil. Our Portuguese is good enough to understand what she is telling them – in fact changing back to speaking Spanish has become quite a challenge – and this way we learn that these elderly people have come to Bolivia for the day to have a medical check-up, or an operation for cataract. Apparently – and surprisingly – the medical services are better here than in west Brazil.
sunset at Ituaba | red macaws taking a shower | "take my picture!" | petrol for sale per litre
A thousand kilometres of unpaved roads
We have 1000 kilometres to cross and the rains have started. Will we manage to reach La Paz in four days or is it going to take a week? Of course we have heard only horror stories about this stretch so we are surprised, to say the least, to find ourselves on a good-quality laterite road which is quite doable, even during the tropical showers that hit us today. We cover a record distance of 420 kilometres.
Riberalta is a centre of Brazil nuts, or castanha, or almendra as they call them here. They are harvested in the rainforest and in fact this industry is a good one to preserve the rainforest. We stop along the road at a small hut where the nuts are bought from the gatherers, to be transported later in large quantities to the factories where they will be shelled. We try to visit a factory but the first is closed – the season is coming to its end. At the second factory the manager needs permission from the owner, but we don't feel like waiting in the tropical heat for an owner who may show up, but maybe not, and who may give permission, but maybe not. Furthermore, the sky is clear so it’s better to cover distance.
vendors fighting to enter the bus with their wares | entrance of village | wholesale of Brazil nuts | the weighing of the nuts
It feels good to be in Bolivia. The transformation from a clean, well-organised west Brazil to a chaotic, dusty but lively Bolivia is marked. To me it is always a bit intimidating in the beginning. For example, when we passed that nut-merchant I am curious and I'd like to see it from nearby. But I see and feel so many people staring at us, which feels intimidating and makes me feel like an intruder. But as I have experienced so many times before during our travels, it is a question of getting out of that safe haven of the car and walking up to them, meeting them and learning about their business. Instead of the distant looks filled with distrust, faces are transformed by smiles and the people radiate pride while they happily welcome us and show us what they are doing.
Asian scenes in Bolivia
In Guayaramerím we mainly noticed the large number of rickshaws, motorcycles to which a contraption is attached to carry three passengers. In Riberalta transport largely consists of motorcycles. The way they buzz in swarms, veering from left to right, is reminiscent of Vietnam. Four persons on a motorcycle is quite common too. Petrol is for sale at petrol stations but the motorcyclists prefer the quick service at a road stall where the petrol is sold in plastic, one-litre bottles. Alongside the road large wooden platforms have been constructed that serve as workshops to repair or wash cars and motorcycles – any form of sewage system is conspicuously absent.
Off we go. The sun has left the sky and instead we get rain, lots of it. At a remote petrol station we seek shelter waiting for the worst of the tropical storm to pass. Rain enters the car in different spots: Coen's feet are permanently showered, a rag lies in front of the window to stop the water from entering there while another rag absorbs the water that enters the glove compartment. Coen has some work to do in Bolivia in terms of car repairs!
downpour | cows on their way to Riberalta | dusty road | yellow or red Land Cruiser
Traffic jam! Cows. For as far as we can see. Two cowboys motion us to stop and Coen switches the engine off. The cowboys use their horses to guide the cows through a small opening so they can be counted. There are 800 of them and they are on their way to Riberalta. They have covered 8 kilometres and have another 100 to go. An impressive sight.
A laterite road leads into the fields until we find shelter behind high bushes and trees and are invisible from the road. A good place to camp where the Land Cruiser can't sink down in mud in case of a long night of rain. We get another few drops of rain and see part of a double rainbow. The dripping stops and we can sit outside to witness a glorious sunset. Then we turn the chairs around in preparation of our evening concert: over the entire width of the field in front of us fireflies dance, filling the sky. The only time we have ever seen so many fireflies was in Malaysia. Together with the humming of the nocturnal insects and the happy croaking of the frogs they provide an excellent evening program.
In the home stretch to La Paz
A day later the flat countryside suddenly changes and we begin a steep ascent up the mountains. It is not easy to find a flat place in the mountains suitable to spend the night. When we wake up rain is pounding down on the Land Cruiser and we are surrounded by clouds. What a depressing sight – in fact, a bit disappointing after the marvellous views we had yesterday. However, our luck returns. After a fifteen-minute drive the clouds start to dissolve and allow us to catch glimpses of the still tropical surroundings. In the valley patches of drifting mist create a mystical ambience, as we witnessed in the Himalayas of Bhutan. At that time I exclaimed that Bhutan surely was the entrance to Shangri-La, but now I am not so sure anymore, maybe it's Bolivia.
As far as I am concerned, these lush, verdant mountains west of Yucumo belong to the most beautiful stretches we have ever driven. Large parts of the rainforests remain untouched and because of the mountainous region the immensity of these woods is overwhelming; the views of endless rainforest stretched on mountain slopes reach much further than when driving through a flat area, where one only gets to see the edges of a rainforest. Only when we get closer to La Paz have parts of the forest been cleared for agriculture. We are too far away to see what has been planted there, maybe it is coca but I don't know yet what these plants look like.
almuerzo, Bolivian lunch | tasty soupf |lots of dust so watch out when overtaking a car | dust
Road signs with a new instruction: 'Conserve su izquierda' – 'Drive on the left side'. For the first time since Asia we drive on the left side of the road again. We follow a narrow, unpaved road that winds through a region with a vertical rock wall on our left side and a sheer drop on our right. There is little space for manoeuvring and we are impressed by the quietness and discipline of the Bolivian truck drivers and bus drivers. Maybe they have learned something from all the little crosses that have been placed at regular intervals on a nasty corner. It is not difficult to image how men, drunk or speeding, lose control on these mountainous roads and crash to their death. By driving on the left side the downhill-drivers drive right along the edge of the ravine, which enables them to better calculate how much manoeuvring space they have.
Suddenly La Paz looms into view and the sun reappears – it feels like a welcome. The mountain slopes of this city of 1.5 million inhabitants are crammed with small houses made of red brick. La Paz was built in a canyon, where it started as a village near the river but expanded until there was no space left but on the steep slopes. Like with the forests, we feel an overwhelming sense of the immensity of the city because of the cluttered hills. We don't get much chance to really absorb the scene, we have to traverse this city from north to south, straight through the centre. At last the GPS earns its rightful place in our Land Cruiser equipment. With only one miniscule miscalculation at a turn-off it guides us smoothly through La Paz' rush hour.
driving on the left side | the Yungas | tarmac, at last!| fairytale-like La Paz
South of La Paz lies "Overland", a hotel run by a Swiss and in La Paz known among overlanders as thé place to stay. We stay in an uninteresting parking lot which is not cheap [to Bolivian standards] but the hotel does have a shower for us and we can even use its swimming pool. This is not a place to be picky because the steep slopes of La Paz make it more or less impossible to find a decent place to camp. Our Portegnol [mixture of Portuguese and Spanish] is so 'fluent' that the employees think we are Brazilians!
Wow, 3 days and 1000 kilometres – considering the rainy season I had expected we would have needed a week. As usual Coen has excelled in his steering and not surprisingly fatigue quickly overtakes us. Exhausted and suffering from the sudden difference in altitude [we are now at 3200 metres] we quickly call it a day.
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