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Into the Belly of Bolivia
From the altiplano to the jungle, a soggy saga of Class V rapids, sandal-sucking mud, and a forestful of hoots, groans, and screams
By Kent Black

Mario knelt by the left front tire, sprinkled it with alcohol from a small bottle, and said a prayer to Pachamama, the earth mother. Those of us who had stepped out of the truck to watch were in favor of any edge we could get. This road in the Bolivian Andes looked as if it'd been nailed by concentrated strafing, and the cliff to our left gave way to nothing we could see but darkness. As the truck descended jerkily, we focused on Mario's uncanny ability to slide around corners without pitching us into the void.

Matt, a 26-year-old from Colorado, nudged me. "You know the left rear tire is just hanging off in space, right?" I unscrewed the cap of one of our bottles of singani, a potent Bolivian brandy, took a good swig, and passed it along. Only Tim, our trip's naturalist, was brave enough to glance out his window. He turned suddenly, seized the singani bottle, and drank a steady five-second pull. It was then that we all said a little prayer to Pachamama.

It's never a bad idea to invoke some extra deities when you're traveling in the Third World—especially if you're planning to venture deep into the Amazon where there are no human settlements, no radio contact, and no possibility of rescue. Eleven of us had signed up to do just that...for fun. It was a trip that would take us across the 14,000-foot altiplano, along the eastern shores of Lake Titicaca, over a 15,000-foot pass in the Andean Apolobamba Range, and then down to its eastern flanks to the Rio Tuichi, which we'd follow via raft and kayak through the heart of Madidi National Park. None of us expected our shirttails to touch our butts for next 11 days.

Our group had hooked up in La Paz, Bolivia's 12,000-foot-high capital, which, surrounded by the higher altiplano, resembles nothing so much as a big city swallowed by the world's largest sinkhole. Still, it's good for acclimatizing. It's also good physical conditioning to weave in and out of the potential rallies that are a daily feature of the city's life. And it's a great place to leave. We did the next morning, figuring we'd sail across the altiplano, skirt Titicaca, hump it over the Andes, and arrive at the hot springs that was our intended first night's camp a bit after teatime. After all, our trip's leader and organizer, Sergio Ballivian of Explore Bolivia, had said, sphinx-like, "It's not really that far."

We soon figured out that Sergio is a master of understatement. The first night's campsite wasn't far if you're packing a compact transporter from the Starship Enterprise. Otherwise, it's a long, long way (the 150-mile route took 14 hours). Sergio had once told us to expect a little mud; we spent half the day digging out the truck and slogging through the stuff. Sergio told us that "the next day is going to be a little tougher"; this is when it became necessary to inebriate the tires and call for Pachamama's diving intervention.

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