Bolivian Amazon Jaunt

Villa Tunari, Bolivia, March:

´Want to come to work with us? ´

It is Hugo, the impeccably dressed herbal medicine-selling Peruvian who, along with his brother Peter, has been staying in my hostel. I am doubtful, having planned to leave this very morning for Santa Cruz. Then I recall something I was once told: every truly meaningful experience is beyond rigid plans and outside comfort zones. So I agree to go, and store my luggage in the hostel lobby.

I follow the briefcase-toting Hugo and Peter through dense, verdant forest until we reach a clearing by a large river, a cable traversing it to a cement pillar on the other side. ´How do we cross it? ´ I ask Hugo. ´By cable,´ he responds nonchalantly. A friendly man soon arrives, and offers to take us each across. ´Who is first? ´, he asks, bemused by my nervousness. If two men walking through the jungle with formal clothing and briefcases is a unique thing to see, watching them speed across a raging river on a giant flying fox to get to work is farcical sight! I reach the other side euphoric and intact.

The town is beautifully secluded. There are clucking, chattering hens, imposing banana trees and humble dwellings made of wood and adobe. Every person who walks past us greets us warmly in their language, ´Quechua´, a smile on their face. When the brooding clouds move in and we run to avoid a squall, a man approaches us, inviting us to his house for shelter. Later, the brothers proceed from door to door, offering their remedies to the locals, some enthusiastically buying, and all inquisitively asking about us.

This unique other-world for me is a typical town for the hard working Peruvians. Bolivia seems a country which hones intuition, and this often teaches you to embrace the moment and value the chance for new experiences. Later as I speed back across the river on the flying fox, I feel happy to have discovered this, and to have seen what Hugo and Peter see every day.