Girls Gone Wild

We were supposed to travel into the jungle with German, one of the leaders of an indigenous community reserve on the eastern side of the river. But after showing up at his office and house for over a week trying to pin down a date, we tired of this process.

Our last attempt to make travel plans with German was something of a disaster. We went to the office around 3pm and found German lying on the brick walkway in the courtyard. His small daughter was jumping around playing, and his wife was standing next to her husband, not seeming to mind that he was curled in the fetal position in front of five other employees. While we were chatting with some guardaparques German woke up and grinned widely at us.

“Chicas! Te amo,” he pointed enthusiastically at myself and Julie, repeating in both Spanish and Mosetene (indigenous language) that he loved us. Then he called over his older daughter and insisted on taking a photo of myself, Julie, his wife, his 3 month-old child and two other daughters. Still lying on the ground, propped up on his elbow now, he is barely able to hold the camera upright, and initially had the lens aimed at himself. We are standing waiting, our arms around each other as if we were best of friends. Ultimately German points the camera at us and manages to depress the button enough for a shaky flash to go off.

“Un otro, un otro,” he insists, unsteadily waving the camera in our direction.

When his daughter manages to regain control of the camera she shows us the pictures. As I am the tallest person in most of Bolivia, it is my head that is cut off in the first picture. In the second one, his wife and baby are squeezed out of the frame.

I find the whole situation both annoying and funny. We were supposed to be leaving for a trip to visit indigenous communities today, but clearly he is in no position to take us. With independence day falling on a Monday, everyone began drinking on Friday, and even today the plaza is littered with remaining make-shift tarp booths, and a handful of karaoke die-hards.

So instead we walk back home, and decide that we will join our friends who are hiking to the ridge behind the ridge outside of town. We throw some water and a camera in our bags, and hop on motorcycles up to the mirador.

The hike starts out rather tamely, we trek through a field and then into the leafy and more shaded jungle, roughly following a creek which we hope leads to the ridge. After less than an hour we are deep in the jungle and having to send scouting missions to attempt to find passage through the undergrowth.

We take turns slicing a narrow trail through the tangle of vines, ferns, serrated leaves which draw blood, and plants that grab your flesh like vicious Velcro.

Hacking with the machete is oddly satisfying, though slow work. Whilst I am slashing away trying to get us out of a particularly dense patch, Roger pulls out his camera and films the destruction, telling me he is going to sell the footage to “Girls Gone Wild.” To each his own fantasy.

After several hours alternating between hacking and passing the dogs up the steep cliffs we are up on a ridge, a saddle really. We climb a tree and can see that this saddle does indeed connect to the rocky ridge we are attempting to summit, but between here and there is thick with undergrowth.

We break for a lunch of chocolate bars, grapefruit and bananas, and then we clear probably another kilometer of trail. Some of the group are tiring, so we decide to head back.

It only takes a few minutes to slide down the dirt/rock slopes that took so long to climb up. Hilda is the first to fall, and skis down the slope on her bum, clawing in the air to grab a root to break her fall. Ultimately we all decide this is the safest method, and squat down so we are sliding on our boots and bums.

A few hours later, back at the house, we call up the motorcycle taxi to bring us up some beers. Some quick showers and we retire to watch the sunset from the balcony, drinking cerveza and chewing coca leaves.