Feb
1
The Other Trinidad
Feb 2012
By Bryan Kingsfield
I flew from Cochabamba to Trinidad on Sunday morning. This Trinidad is not to be confused with the other Trinidad, that pleasant holiday island. This one is in the Beni region of Bolivia which is part of the Amazon basin. This Trinidad is a steamy, muddy, river port on the Rio Mamore, with dirt streets, open sewers and a world of trash. I found a musty hotel to store my things and then set out to find a boat north to the Brazilian border.
Motorcycles are the preferred local transport. Small Japanese ¨motos¨ are always buzzing the streets searching for who knows what. There is a constant stream of them circling the main plaza making good time to nowhere.
I contracted with a moto taxi to go to the main port where the boats are moored to find my pleasure craft. It is not exactly a ¨port¨ in the real sense. It is rather a mud bank with planks leading from two-storey, dilapidated wooden scows onto the high ground. We find a boat that is leaving tomorrow. At least that is what the lady on the boat says. She points to a dirt floored thatched shack where the captain is dining. We find El Capitaine in the midst of a Sunday drunk. Yes, he is leaving tomorrow. No, he does not drink on the boat. Too dangerous. Do I want to join him for a drink and be his friend? I explain about Gringo stomachs not being up to Bolivian beer. He buys it.
As we are leaving the good captain´s company my moto man sees a Bolivian sailor. Yes Virginia Bolivia has a navy. No ocean, but a navy. In fact most adult Bolivians can name the coastal provinices that were lost in a war with Chile in the 19th century. It is still a political issue and every president promises to get the coast back.
The navy man says they are leaving today and if I hurry I can come. They are docked a little further up the river. A ¨little farther¨ in Bolivia can mean most anything. But Mr. Moto says we can make it. Back to the hotel we go to get the bags and then back on the road. We pass the drunken captain´s port and keep going. It begins to rain. Not just rain. Tropical downpour. The dirt road begins to get slick. Here the earth is that red clay of the type you see in pictures of devastation in the Amazon rain forest. Very soon there is a thick film of mud on the road and the moto slows down. The first time the moto went down I felt it coming and was able to slide off the back. The second time not so lucky. Going was tough and at this point Mr. Moto said it would be better if he went on ahead with my bag to make sure they waited for me. Sure thing. Off he went. I was now completely drenched right down to (and through) my waterproof boots and very, very muddy. I walked, and walked. I passed a dead horse being consumed by vultures. My mood was definitely in peril. Finally the moto came back into sight, picked me up and we reached the boat.
My fine Bolivian naval vessel had seen better days but it looked sturdy enough. (Steel, no less.) And I figured that the sailors would be relatively professional and more reliable. In fact, there was no beer on board. Not allowed, they said. Should be a safe ride. There was a captain, his wife, 5 crewmen, a cook and a pretty young girl with ill-defined duties. We were pushing a fuel barge with 450 thousand gallons of diesel and gasoline, so the going was slow. About 12 kph. We were to cover 330 k in four days. Water skiing was out of the question.
The scenery was fabulous, dense jungle with very few other humans about. The first day we didn´t see another boat and only 2 houses. It was what the South American road builders had called the green hell. We saw monkeys, parrots, parakeets, eagles, herons, storks, pink fresh water river dolphins and even a baby alligator. The Brazilians believe that dolphins turn into men and seduce young women as they swim in the river. It is one way to explain the many unexpected pregnancies in the region.
Most of the animals were in the forest because it was the rainy season and they didn´t need to come to the river to drink. From dry season to wet the water level changes 7 metres. Like having a Bay of Fundy tide change come by every year. We did see a capybara. This is the world's largest rodent and lives around and in the river. The South Americans had the Pope declare it a fish so they could eat it on those meatless Fridays. (Whatever happened to them?)
After the first day, there were more boats and the captain did some trading. Gasoline for bananas, yucca, fruit, fish, and meat. He took me with him in a skiff when he did his business. Once we caught up with a cattle boat. I thought they were just going to talk until 30 lbs of cow intestines landed at my feet in the bottom of the boat. Nice. At one point he bought a large sow to take to his mother-in-law´s birthday party. Good gift.
The conditions weren´t bad but the plumbing was irregular. Mostly one scooped water out of the river to flush the toilet and wash. One dark night I sleepily scooped my bucket, lost my balance and just caught the railing before I went overboard. I wondered how long it would be before they realized the Gringo was gone....or if a rescue attempt would be mounted. I got more careful.
There were about 4 other passengers including a middle-aged couple who showed a great deal of interest in Canada. Did we have jungle there? What about alligators? At one point the man joined me at the railing to ask me if it was true that Canadians didn´t believe in God. Well, I said, some people have some difficulty with the concept. Well, he would prove to me that God existed. Ok. His brother-in-law had a fighting cock. One time when the fight was on, the cock got knocked down and didn´t get up but just lay there. (I knew where this was going but feigned interest.) Actually, out of the corner of my eye, I was watching his wife, the sister of the bird owner. She had a kidney condition that required her to run a solution through her system from a drip bag every 6 hours. She was just finishing up. She took the bag down and threw it and the tubing over the railing into the river. I watched it float by as her husband continued his story.)
It seems the brother in law had great faith in the Virgin Mary and began to pray to her to help the bird, promising to do something in return; I didn´t catch what. And wouldn´t you know it, the bird got up, went on the attack, and won the fight. Now who would doubt God after that?
At the end of the second day we stopped at another ¨port¨ with a number of huts hugging the river bank. But this port was special. There was a bar. The captain took everyone ashore for a drink about 4 o´clock and said we would be leaving in two hours. Two hours later I went back to the boat. Four hours later, I went back to see if the party was ending. It wasn´t. The two helmsmen were very far gone. I figured the chances of leaving were slim and went back to the boat to go to bed. The captain got home about 10. The rest of the crew about 2, and the stragglers about 6 am. The stragglers had found some cane alcohol.
At this stop we had picked up a few more passengers, five pigs, 100 pounds of bananas and some chickens. This was added to the already significant pile of wares under tarps on the deck of the fuel barge. As I was to discover this was highly improper. The fuel barge was owned by a private company and leased by the military to deliver fuel to their bases. And it was strictly forbidden under the contract to carry anything on the deck of the fuel barge. As we got near to the end of our journey the helmsman swung our ensemble into the shore about 2 miles from town. A large truck came round a corner, stopped, and out jumped about 25 sailors from the local base. These boys furiously attacked the cargo and in about 15 minutes everything was loaded in the truck. Furniture, fridges, mattresses, stereos, exercise equipment (in this heat) and lot of (soggy) cardboard boxes with who knows what. And of course all the animals left the ark. The crew hosed the deck down and scrubbed the area where the animals had been. We continued the last two miles with a sparkling clean fuel barge with no evidence that there had ever been anything there. At the port, our Captain jumped ashore, saluted the Port Captain who smiled at the fuel barge and returned the salute. The Bolivian navy was in port.