Crossing the divide

I'm sitting here in Cochabamba, Bolivia's third city, famous for the 'water wars' 10 years ago, when an IMF-imposed privatisation handed the city's water network over to an international consortium. It wasn't just the municipal water network they gained rights over, but also rural irrigation systems that communities had often built themselves, and even rain falling on roofs. Immediately after the privatisation, prices doubled or tripled, and a big protest movement began. Incredibly, this led to the successful de-privatisation of the network, and prices returned to prior levels. Problems remain, as there are still barrios without running water, but this is a rare achievement.

I arrived here this morning on the bus from Santa Cruz. I went to sleep sweating as usual in my shorts and t-shirt, but awoke shocked by the cold temperatures as we neared our destination. I had expected it to be cold on the Altiplano, but Cochabamba is in a fertile valley at what for the Bolivian Andes is a relatively low altitude. I suppose I should have realised that 2600m is not low.

Bolivia seems to be becoming increasingly divided between the highlands (whose people are known as colla) and the lowlands (home of the camba). Until today I've been in the lowlands the whole time. Evo Morales, Bolivia's indigenous, socialist-leaning President, is a colla and he is definitely not popular in the lowlands. Virtually everyone I've spoken to so far has had a very low opinion of him, telling me stories of corruption, poor judgement, and prejudice against the mostly wealthier, non-indigenous camba. Perhaps here I'll get a different viewpoint.

Santa Cruz, the main city of the lowlands and with a booming economy based on oil, gas, cattle and soya, is the centre of a vociferous 'Autonomia' movement. I've heard that the government of Santa Cruz Department may have hired a small terrorist cell from the former Yugoslavia to fight their cause. When these terrorists were captured a video was uncovered, explaining how they took their orders from a contact in the local government, who took orders from the Governor of Santa Cruz Department, who took orders from the American Ambassador (who had been the American Ambassador to Yugoslavia immediately before the the wars there). In Santa Cruz the local media and government declared this was all fabricated by the national government, to undermine them. Both options are hard to credit, but it gives you a picture of the politics over here!

Back to my travels, I had a wonderful time in the savannas of Beni with Octavio, Kathrin and Paolo. We were helping Kathrin with her research on bats, but that's only possible in the evenings, so the rest of the time we were free to explore (or to sleep). There may be more wildlife in the rainforest but it's far easier to spot in the savannas!

It's a strange ecosystem, with vast swathes of marshy grassland interspersed with forest islands. Some of the forests follow rivers, where water is guaranteed throughout the dry season, but others are harder to explain. They may be related to former water courses, or they may have been affected by the civilisation thought to have thrived here in pre-Colombian times. Little is known about these people, but it's thought that they built a huge network of mounds and dykes, with year-round irrigation allowing agriculture to support a large population. They were never discovered by the Spaniards, probably because imported diseases killed 99% of the population before missionaries ever made it that far downriver.

We spent many hours in these savannas, searching for frogs and toads, and finding every type of bird from hummingbirds to vultures, from macaws to strange primitive ducks, pink spoonbills and very aggresive lapwings. Octavio caught a few snakes and spent days setting up photos of each one - I had to threaten this small green non-venomous tree snake so it would open it's mouth in a classic defensive posture, but unfortunately it soon grew tired of our games and refused to open it's mouth for the camera.

A highlight was when we found a porcupine climbing in the bamboo one night - I never realised they had such long fleshy tails! Although I must admit I got tired of standing there getting slaughtered by the mozzies after about 20 minutes of avid photographing by Octavio and Kathrin. Yes the mozzies were insane. For the bat work we couldn't use repellent. We wore head nets, gloves and 2 layers of clothes, but still they would manage to find a way in. Thank God they don't carry malaria.

But my happiest moment was when I fell off a horse. I admit, I must be a bit crazy. I think it was the adrenaline. We had three beautiful horses to ride, the only complication being that mine didn't like to stay on the track. Instead it would fearlessly plough through swamps and ponds, with me struggling to control it. We were galloping through the grass and as we turned the whole saddle came off, taking me with it. I fell into the mud and my t-shirt was white no longer.

Bolivia in a (Brazil) nut shell

Well, the 5 weeks of fieldwork are over and here I am, feeling like I have so much more still to learn. To put it bluntly, there´s a shitload of trees out there and if you show me one, chances are despite all Abel, Victor and Antonio´s patiet tutoring, I still won`t have a clue even what family it comes from, let alone genera or species.

Another big problem is my Spanish. Yes, it´s certainly improved. But I still find it very hard to follow most conversations, and even harder to talk myself. That put up a real communication barrier between me and the rest of the fieldwork team. Of course, non-verbal communication is always possible and never before has my back been slapped so frequently, or with such gusto.

As for learning materials, I had access to a quality piece of Peruvian literature, "El cojo y el loco" (The madman and the cripple). The book opens with the unforgetable line "El cojo no nació cojo, nació jodido. (The cripple was not born a cripple, he was born fucked). You can see I learned lots of useful vocabulary this way.

We´ve been working in two different locations - La Chonta in Santa Cruz Department, in the east of Bolivia, and Mabet, in Pando Department in the far north of Bolivia. The first thing I noticed when we arrived in Mabet was the colour of the forest. The prevalent tone was a much darker shade of green than in La Chonta. La Chonta is on the very fringe of the rainforest zone, a few dozen kilometres from drier seasonal forests, but Pando is a true Amazonian heartland.

This is Brazil nut territory - or castaña as it´s known here. 70% of the world´s Brazil nuts come from Bolivia and their collection and processing is the biggest industry round here. It´s highly sustainable, unlike other major industries such as logging, cattle ranching, soya or sunflower production, or in nearby parts of Peru gold panning. According to a local paper, 10,000 families here get a livelihood from castaña, certainly without it there would be little hope for the forest.

The season for collecting Brazil nuts has just begun. At one camp we were joined by a big group of castañeros; on a rare day off I had great fun playing with a couple of the kids. Some of the games might not be to everybody´s liking though. We started off catching the stupendulously abundant butterflies, but that was too easy so the boys moved up the food chain to the lizards that feed on the butterflies. The older boy was a maestro on the sligshot so I´m glad the lizard population seemed healthy enough.

Yes, we may be here to preserve biodiversity but when it comes down to it, that often goes out the window. When you get bitten by 10-40 ticks a day (thankfully disease-free) and constantly molested by sweat-feeding bees, you lose qualms about killing insects. Then there´s the clearing of trails through the forest and the collection of samples for species ID, plus general trampling.

Luckily there was only one site that we had to make an entirely new trail for. I say we, but Rene did all the work with the machete. At the end of the day he took off his wellies and out poured a small torrent of water. I thought he must have fallen in the stream but no, it was all sweat. It was 3km from the road to the plot and it had taken us 5 hours.

The campsite where we were joined by the castañeros was next to a medium sized river. The daily swim was my moment of bliss, after the day´s fieldwork was complete and we had an hour or so to relax and wash before eating dinner and starting to prepare the samples we´d collected that day.

It certainly wasn´t easy work. I may or may not get the chance to visit Potosí´s famous and terrifying mines, but i read that the miners there don´t take food underground. Instead they rely on a cocktail of coca leaves, pure alcohol and raw tobacco, while the kids working in the mines get by on sweets and fizzy drinks. I can proudly say that I´ve now partaken of all these substances, yes even the raw tobacco. Of the three by far the most innocent are the coca leaves. These are chewed with raw or powdered liana and bicarbonate of soda, and provide a welcome boost on the long days of fieldwork. Roel told me the powdered liana was cocaine and I believed him for a good week or so, despite the paltry scale of it´s effects.

Generally though, our sustenance was provided mostly by a myriad of variations on rice and meat. If we were lucky (in my view at least), there might also be some beans, potatoes, pasta or yucca, or tomato and onion salad. Everyone was very amused by my yearnings for veg, but when some guys went into town on a resupply mission, I begged for vegetables. They came back with everything on the list apart from the carrots I´d asked for - supposedly there were no decent carrots to be found in the whole market - and this is in Riberalta, a city with a population of 100,000.

As for wildlife, in La Chonta we saw a group of aggressive and utterly fearless black spider monkeys right above the trail several days running. We also heard the eerie calls of howler monkeys, and saw numerous agouti (large rodents that act as the dispersors for castaña), big fat game birds, macaws, toucans and birds of prey. The snakes are abundant, but nothing comes close to the insects in terms of sheer persistance. Thankfully, Mabet had less bees than La Chonta, and virtually no ticks.

After finishing the fieldwork I spent several days in Riberalta arranging onward transport. Riberalta has a pretty setting at the confluence of the vast Rio Beni and Rio Madre de Dios. The town is abundantly green, gently dilapidated, and absolutely heaving with motorbikes. The favourite activity of youngsters here is to ride round and round the plaza principal all day, showing off their bikes and eyeing up the talent. I have now fully experienced the joys of "ida y vuelta" and I can tell you it gets boring pretty quickly.

Now I´m back in the wilds, on a ranch far from the nearest road, helping friends with their research on bats. This place also has by far the best internet connection I´ve seen so far. But I´ve writen enough. It´s time to go look at the snake Octavio caught.

Much love xxxx

Joey