21-23 October 2006
Hola - we just got back from the Chapare, hopped on a bus and a train to Uyuni. In 10 minutes we will jump on a Land Cruiser to travel around the salt flats for 3 days... Yeehaw! We are back on the road!
For our trip to the Chapare http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chapare_Province, we rented a car and hired our friend Gallo to be our driver and guide; we went with Boris, our fishing buddy.
The Chapare is a provence in the Cochabamba Department and mostly rainforest that surround the Rio Chapare. This area is interesting because although it is only 160 East of the city of Cochabamba (at 8600 ft), it is almost at sea level and rainforest. So the drive from Cochabamba to the Chapare brought us through a variety of ecosystems. The first photo is an image of the drive down into the rainforest through mountanous cloud forests.
The Chapare rainforests differed from those in Eastern Peru (that we visited in September) because the land seemed to be more destroyed by human use. We witnessed a lot of slashed-burned agricultural sites. In addition, this area is infamous for coca growth and cocaine production. The government, under pressure of the US, has controlled the amount of coca production and has cracked down on cocaine production http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coca_eradication. Ironically, the main road through the area was apparently built through US Development aid. Currently, it is a little unclear of what is produced in the region.
We visited several sites in the area - an ecological bioreserve where we saw and learned about many insects, caiman, and plants. We walked through an animal rehabilitation center where monkeys and birds that had been kept as pets, were rehabilitated in a free-roaming and non-fenced reserve. These animals were free to leave when they were ready. We had mixed emotions about this place, especially when we were followed and climbed-on by the monkeys. Anyone checking them for Hepatitis C? I think not. This was certainly a different perspective of the rainforest mammals than we had in Peru´s Tambopata River.
The Chapare is MUCH hotter and steamier than Cochabamba... so we took this opportunity to swim in an Amazonian river and also at a fancy hotel which had a large waterslide. Much fun.
Many thanks to Gallo who took terrific photos of our trip...and who let me steal his camera when the need to take a photo was just overwhelming!
