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The Mapiri - Guanay boat has the canopy (left). It is nothing more than a long and narrow dugout canoe onto which high sides and a superstructure has been attached. The children (right) are playing in what might be a future Mapiri boat. |
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The Mapiri Trail - Contents Bolivia, 2001 Home
To Page 5: The Grasslands - Mapiri
The Mapiri Trail
6: Dugout to Guanay
Copyright: Jim Ciotti, 2001
October 11, 2001
Click on Images for Enlargement
Saturday morning we hopped the daily boat which wound down the Rio Mapiri to Guanay.
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The Mapiri - Guanay boat has the canopy (left). It is nothing more than a long and narrow dugout canoe onto which high sides and a superstructure has been attached. The children (right) are playing in what might be a future Mapiri boat. |
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The Mapiri is a twisting and turning, quick-falling waterway that takes skill and concentration to navigate. In a social sense, it is a long back-road along which people live their lives and do their work. We passed small huts and settlements, plantations of bananas, and people swimming, playing, washing clothes and mining gold. Once again we were reminded we were off the tourista beaten path - the boat is not the express train vaulting from A to Z; it is a local bus stopping wherever wanted. The boat stopped to buy things and to pick up and drop off people, bunches of bananas, bags and bales, hunks of lumber, and strange, huge-headed fish. We left Mapiri uncrowded; three hours later at Guanay, the boat was brimming full.
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Scenes along the Rio Mapiri. |
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Guanay was a surprise. When I first came here it consisted of a large grassy field surrounded by thatched huts. Now, thirty years later it had turned into a small, pleasant jungle town.
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| Guanay's central plaza is a great place to wait for a bus. | |
The evening of our arrival we took the overnight bus to La Paz. We must have looked like primordial creatures oozing up out of a B grade midnight movie when we wandered into a La Paz hotel early the next morning. We were tired, sore, bruised, and bee-stung...our clothes were wet and dirty. Yes, the Mapiri Trail is no slouch when it comes to treks, but in spite of all the difficulties, it is great. The scenery was great and our companions were magnificent. Even the challenges were something to embrace. Would we do it again. You betcha - as soon as our knees recover.
Ciao,
Jim (and Anne)
