Donde no hay turistas

Just returned from four day camping adventure into obscure jungle communities. One of the documentaries I'm "contracted" to create is about this government diagonistic and planning tool called PMOT, or Plan Municipal de Ordanemiento Territorial. Basically, Conservation International (a very cool NGO I'm working with) is working with local municipal governments to assess the land from both a socioeconomic and environmental perspective to try to plan development and control it in a sustainable way. Though it sounds like a lot of bureaucratic bullshit, the people actually respect the ideas, and they want the input of biologists on how to best both use and conserve the land.

So, little gringa intern with her hand-held camera gets to tag along on these crazy trips into the jungle with Fabiana, the Conservation International Communications director who runs the workshops.

We loaded up the truck, a Toyota Land-Cruiser complete with 4 wheel drive and steel-cable winch, with our backpacks and luxury items that are difficult to find in the jungle, such as water and toilet paper. We drive down to the docks (by which I mean the area where the dirt road stops because it reaches the water, there are no docks to speak of) and drive the car onto this floating barge via two large planks which the men move around depending on the width of the car. Once on the other side we get onto the "highway" which is a dirt road skirting the Madidi mountains. It is wide enough for two-way traffic, but I have been on this road over five times and never passed another car; I've only seen motorcycles, bicyclists with rifles and machetes, and the occasional logging truck hauling ancient trees into the world of commercialism.

After about three hours of bouncing around in the back of the truck we pull off the main "highway" onto a smaller dirt road with giant vats of sucking mud. We only get truly stuck once, but sadly we didn't need to use the winch. We travel down this road for an hour and a half, the only signs of people being a logger's camp (ten beds pitched under a cheap blue tarp) and a few wooden houses with thatched roofs. We finally arrived at Tahua, a small community of 50 families, and Fabiana went to tell the community leader that we would be returning on Friday to hold a PMOT workshop.

I set off to either find an outhouse or a place to pee where my ass won't be bit by scary flies that spread flesh-eating bacteria (endemic to the area). Along my way I'm approached by the community members, who, upon learning I work for Conservation International, immediately begin asking me for clean water and perhaps a doctor for the community. When I explain that we'll be returning to do a workshop about conservation and development plans on Friday, I suddenly realize that I really have no idea what the point of these PMOT workshops is, despite knowing all the NGO lingo, and having interviewed several people about this PMOT thing. But my lack of clarity doesn't seem to bother the people, and as I soon learn, any excuse for a gathering is good enough. (I swear, they love to do "tallers" [workshops] for everything here.)

After some gifts of grapefruit and some other fruit with a green brown husk and specific eating instructions, we pile back in truck to return to the "highway." We eventually arrive in Ixiamas (pop 3,000), which seems a booming metropolis after our drive through misty green jungle nothingness. We go to the store, which is really a woman's house with the front room full of bags of rice, corn, quinoa, stacks of eggs, some crackers and miscellanous items, and the pricier things like yogurt (unrefridgerated) and mediocre (we later discovered) cookies.

We purchase 100 pieces of bread, which the woman meticulously counts out of a giant garbage bag, some rice, carrots, some Bolivian cheese (rather tasteless and salty), lentils and coca leaves and cigarettes to bring to the communities.

The next morning we're up at 6am. On the road after bread and coffee for breakfast (we turned down the grizzled-meat-still-clinging-to-cow-vertebrae and rice option). We are headed to El Tigre, a community of 80 families and 4 single people, all of whom are immigrants from Potosi, a region in the altiplano (high abandoned Andes).

Clemente, the driver, figures out that the thing I have been waving around is a video camera, and when I explain what a video camera does he becomes the most enthusiastic supporter. He is constantly waving his arms at things out the window and telling me to film them. Even though he grew up in the jungle he is more excited about spotting fauna than I am; he slams on the breaks and gestures violently at the little dark brown monkeys swinging and screeching overhead, saying "Film them, film them!" in spanish.

At this point the truck is carrying fifteen passengers-- we picked up eleven people who wanted a ride to various small communities along the dirt road. So I crawl out over four people, including one cholita holding a chicken, and then wiggle through the window and out onto the dirt road, all in order to get a better close-up shot of the monkeys. The two guys who are riding on the grill on the roof have the best view of all.

It turns out that Fabiana has never been to El Tigre before. Her last attempt to visit was during the rainy season and the roads were flooded. This trip, however, the rivers are lower, and we are able to cross them relatively easily, the water only reaching about three feet up the side of the truck. So we have to stop several times to ask people if we've passed El Tigre since no one knows where it is. It turns out that El Tigre is at the end of the road and you cannot go any deeper into the jungle except on foot.

The instant we show up in El Tigre word gets out that the freak show is in town. Everyone comes up to peer at our truck and stare at the gringas (myself and Julie, the other intern). We set up our tents in the one-room schoolhouse, which is really little more than a cement floor with a roof. The little kids line up outside to watch.

We spread the word that we are holding a taller later in the evening, and then everyone crawls into their tents to nap. I decide to hike into the jungle to try to find some loggers to interview.

more on adventures in the jungle to come...