nuestro unico problema es que nos falta chicha

Tuesday, July 24, 2007

Villa Tunari, Chapare Province, Cochabamba, Bolivia

This weekend I hitched a ride in a van with some others and was able to visit a totally different environment of Cochabamba--Villa Tunari in the Chapare. This region essentially sits on the western edge of the Amazon Basin and is dominated by tropical forests. To get there, one drops down out of the Andes from 8500 feet in the Cochabamba Valley to about 900 feet in the Chapare.



This road is dominated by large camiones that haul a variety of goods out of the Amazon, over the Andes to the sea, for sale in other locales (like albertsons). Fruits of all varieties, lumber, and oil are just a few of the exports.

Our first stop was Parque Machia--a wildlife refuge for pumas, monkeys, and other creatures; but especially monkeys. They are not timid, and will come right up to you. This entire weekend I shot with my 50mm prime lens, so I had no zoom--I had no problem getting up close for the next several shots, and the monkeys had no problem either.




2001: A Space Odyssey






a sweaty me with a friendly monkey doing its business


he was more direct with my friend Thomas

There was also a nice trail that lead up a small hillside to a great panoramic view of the Villa Tunari area (where we stayed) of the Chapare.


The Chapare near Pueblo Villa Tunari

That night, we crashed in a hostal that cost us 30 bolivianos a piece (2.50 US) that was run by the director of the Andean Information Network. This group runs information campaigns in english about the problems and abuses of the Campesino population in Bolivia. We drunk some beer and played cards until early in the morning. You can, and should, visit their website here.

The next morning, we got up for sunrise and mass (yes mom, mass--the seminarians keep me in line...), and then headed to Parque Carrasco, which protects an area of beautiful cloud forest home to bats and a rare endangered species of bird that lives in caves (I forget the name, but I have seen them before in an episode of Planet Earth before I left) You have to cross a river by cable car to access the jungle.



We entered a pitch-black cavern, and I got some lucky manually-focused shots of some murcielagos.






and a spider...


a flower in the forest, the 1.8 f-stop makes for a pleasant focus

It was most certainly a jungle, complete with massive trees and thick vines. The vines were able to hold the weight of a body, so of course I took advantage of that...


escalando

Another aspect about the Chapare is that it is one of two Amazonian regions of Bolivia where Coca is readily grown. We saw a coca field in the park, tended by campesinos who have lived here for ages and done the same thing--long before cocaine. The coca leaf is not a drug, it is a milder stimulant than coffee and contains 14 alkaloids that are able to help suppress hunger, give energy, combat the effects of altitude, and act as an antiseptic/digestional aid--among dozens of other benefits. I have used it for all these things, and the campesinos in their work most certainly need its aid. The problem with Coca arises when someone extracts one of the 14 alkaloids and concentrates it into Cocaine--and this problem is generated by the addicts, not the growers. Nonetheless, the US used to regularly spray this area of Bolivia with an analog of agent orange--effectively destroying hundreds hectares upon hectares of Rainforest and Cropland, along with any meager profits that the imporverished local population might enjoy. Spraying currently goes on at full pace in Columbia, under the name Plan Columbia--along with US-funded troop deployments that have been linked to hundreds, if not thousands, of deaths and violations. Visit the Andean Information Network link for more information about the current state of this problem in Bolivia. Anyway, we saw a coca field which was a pretty cool chance to witness the source of so much contemporary intervention by the states.


a coca field

One the way back out, I asked the guide if I could cross the river like the Campesino farmers (which we had seen earlier). He said it was possible and gave me a rope and hook with which I hung myself from the cable that crossed the river. It was a good time, and something else to have seen 40/50 year old women cross in the same manner.


roping up


para crusar

It was a good time. Afterward, we heading back through a rainstorm (the first storm I´ve seen in Bolivia--if the ice/snow storm on top of Tunari is overlooked) and got back into town around 10pm. A great weekend overall, and a experience more like that of El Salvador than Alpine Bolivia.

3 comments:

Emily said...

more neat pictures.

i do believe the agent orange analogue you speak of was engineered by Monsanto--same company that created agent orange, many of the patents on GMOs, and the RbGH hormone that shows up in our milk and other dairy.

Terrifying.

Marmot said...

hi eri! those monkeys r sooooooo adorable. i wish i could hold one! (or have one as a pet :) )
i miss u sooooo much. cant wait for u to come home, but have fun down there,
love,
~bean

Marmot said...

"Something else to see 40/50 year old women cross the river in the same manner"....hmmm. You know, that made me swallow hard. I think I'd have kicked your butt on that slide. But that aside, wow. What a fabulous place. I am thankful you are recording it on film so we can enjoy it with you and learn as well. Missing you and love you, Mom