Tag Archives: coca leaves

Chalalán Ecolodge, in the heart of the Madidi National Park, Amazon country…

We are talking real Amazon country…

Flying from altitude in La Paz, in our little 18 seater, to the Amazon rainforest was a shock to the system I can tell you. The La Paz locals walk around as if it´s winter, even though we think it´s mild, but the heat that hit you once you got out of that plane in Rurrenabaque was like walking straight into an oven, literally! All in 50 minutes.

Our guide Sergio met us at the airport; we were easy to recognise as we were the ones flapping just about anything we could get our hands on in order to create a breeze of some description, and we were very pink cheeked. We then got on the little local bus to the main part of town, and into the Chalalan Ecolodge head office. Rurrenabaque reminded me of what I remember Bali to be (I´m talking 1982 mind you!); dirt streets, open concrete gutters, a bar on most corners, and the recommended hotel in town, the Hotel Oriental, consisting of a bed, a shower with one tap and a ceiling fan. All one needs in the tropics really…

After finding Oscars Hotel, for a small fee, we sat there for the rest of the day trying to re-accilimatise, jumping in and out of the pool at will. Not only had we gone from  3500m to 300m, we´d gone from relatively mild weather to full on tropics… little wonder we were looking for respite. After managing to get through the day, and having the slowest evening meal ever, we finally got to lie our heads on our lone beds with the fan…

The next day we were up bright and early to get the boat upriver. 5½ hours upriver in fact, on the River Beni, a tributory of the Amazon; on our way to Chalalán Ecolodge,  located on the shores of the magnificent “Chalalán” Lake, in the Tuíchi valley at the heart of the Madidi National Park in the Bolivian Amazon.

Not only did we see

  • spider monkeys,
  • cappuccino monkeys,
  • yellow-face monkeys,
  • red howler monkeys,
  • poisonous snakes,
  • tarantulas,
  • caimons (little crocs)
  • frogs,
  • macaws,
  • vultures
  • the jaguar however alluded us, unfortunately..l.

…the main story for us is as follows. Whilst you can read all about what´s listed and more on the website www.chalalan.com, it´s the story of how it started that captured our attention…

At the beginning of the 1990s the indigenous community of San José de Uchupiamonas came to terms with its lack of development, poverty and the government’s lack of interest in the health, education, basic services and access to our region. In the 1980s 40 families from our community migrated in search of a better standard of living, something which made us realize that we would likely never receive help from the government nor any credit facilities and were forced to face the future on our own. We decided to create our own project whose main aim would be to improve the living conditions of our community, but were well aware of the difficulty there would be in realizing this dream while we had no concrete guarantee to offer the banks.

In the 1990s we started to ask ourselves: How can we make sure that our community does not disappear? How can we find employment opportunities and improve the living conditions of our people? By looking at the legacy that our ancestors had left us – the forests, animals, rivers and lakes – we decided on ECOLOGICAL TOURISM. Our sights were set and the task of saving our culture and land passed into the hands of a generation destined to a long struggle. Our idea was to construct rustic, traditional, Tacana-style cabins by the shores of the magical Chalalán Lagoon.

The CHALALÁN Project began on 28 February 1992, with no money but an incredible amount of faith and hope in our ability to work towards a better future for our children. Along the way we made many Bolivian, Dutch, Norwegian and American friends who joined our cause. Joseph (Yossi) Ginsberg, an Israeli, thanked our community after being rescued in the Tuíchi valley, and, on the 23rd of December, 1992, said “I will never forget or stop thanking you. I was born in Israel but I believe I was reborn on the beaches of Progreso near San José. I feel Bolivian and it would be an honor for me now to be a Josesano “. He began to seek financing to promote the community project and managed to contact the representatives of Conservation International and through them contact the Interamerican Development Bank.

The Project was now up and running along with the search for financing. However we still needed more support. This came from Mr James D. Nations, Conservation International’s Latin America Vice President, who wrote the following about his visit to San José de Uchupiamonas: “In all of my working days I have never seen such a desire to protect the environment. I will never forget seeing such respect and love for life and meeting wonderful people”.

His visit had a very positive effect for our community and his desire to help our cause led to the support of Conservation International Washington for our project and negotiate with the IDB, which ended up with the award of a Non-Refundable Technical Cooperation agreement (ATN/ME-4757-BO) for the “Sustainable Development and Ecotourism in San José de Uchupiamonas Programme”. It was signed in 1995 along with the creation of the Madidi National Park using funding from the Multilateral Investment Fund.

Had we not taken these quick and decisive actions, our community, both its culture and land, would have disappeared forever.

Now, doesn´t that just warm the cockles of your heart? What a good story. How entrepreneurial is all I can say…
Some 15-18 years later, the project is thriving and we have just spent the most amazing 3 days there. We knew the ecolodge was community based, which is why we chose to spend our money there as opposed to picking some place else (I love how you can spend your money according to what´s important to you and your family). But we did not fully understand the full extent of  how it came to be until after speaking with the community people who looked after us. An honour indeed…

They did also teach us, including Daughter, how to chew coca leaves their way (with bicarbonate of soda and lime juice) and introduced ¨baby puma milk¨ which was some milky strong alcoholic substance. This we had to share with PachaMama (mother earth) and partake as well. The faces Daughter was pulling was priceless, and could not get the stuff out of her mouth quick enough!

Hopefully our little bit helped, and where possible, the word will be spread.
One can only trust that the story continues…

Next on the itinerary, Sucre.