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Noel Kempff Mercado

Wandering across Bolivia's most remotest landscapes

By Northern Adventures

Introduction

(Tue May 18th - Sat May 22TH, 2010)

Noel Kempff Mercado National Park is a national park in northeast Santa Cruz Department, Province of José Miguel de Velasco, Bolivia, on the border with Brazil.

Occupying 16,000 square kilometres, Parque Nacional Noel Kempff Mercado is the country’s most isolated, pristine and spectacular national park, and one of the most remote wilderness regions in South America.

Encompassed several different ecosystems include Amazon rainforest, savannah, and scrubby Brazilian cerrado, and the UNESCO World Heritage Site also supports an astonishing range of wildlife.

This is an archive story; in 2010, we were young guns seeking for a true adventure, and this was my first trip to South America.

During our 3-weeks long Bolivian journey, we planned the visit of this remote national park to the very end of the trip, splurging a few thousands of dollars into a risky adventure in this remotest corner of Bolivia.

The park’s remote location means it's expensive and difficult to visit: even the organized tours can be pretty tough going. The park’s southern border is over 200km from the nearest town, San Ignacio de Velasco, itself another 400km from the city of Santa Cruz.

Reaching Noel Kempff Mercado NP

Where to start... Bolivia is not for the faint-hearted. I would neither travel there alone nor just in a pair (with a woman); the associated risks are just above my risk tolerance level.

I'm not talking about the wild nature as the main risk here; I mean society, fellow humans, and tourist activities. Originating from a former communist country, I feel competent enough to use the term "undeveloped" in a correct, non-pejorative way; there are safe undeveloped countries in the world (I love Asia), and there are less safe undeveloped countries on this planet (and I loved Bolivia!).

I just wanted to start this blogpost in this a bit educative way.

We formed a group of four: three friends from a high-school, and a fellow-colleague of mine. I knew a few Spanish words, Tomáš and Adam almost none, yet Pavel was almost fluent in both Spanish and Portuguese; this helped a lot. A LOT.

Basically, there are two main entrances to Noel Kempff National Park, each with tourism facilities; Flor de Oro (North Side) famous for its stunning waterfalls, and Los Fierros (South Side), offering access to Huanchaca Plateau with the 100 x 60 kilometre rock/platform called La Meseta.

We wanted to visit the northern side of the national park because of the waterfalls, yet finally we ended up in the south; during our trip Flor de Oro was off-limits to tourists due to disagreement between Bolivian and Brazil side of the national park (money, of course!).

For the trip, we used the help of the reliable Ruta Verde travel agency based in Santa Cruz; it was a splurge (around $1000 per person), though it was an all-inclusive quote out of which the main cost item was formed by the private chartered flight from Santa Cruz (and back) - we neither wanted nor had enough time to travel to Los Fierros overland (though it's possible albeit very lengthy, and may save substantial part of the cost).

The flight was perfect and of a great experience; a spectacular journey in the small Cessna aircraft across hundreds of kilometres of virtually uninhabited rainforest.

Greg, our American pilot, had to fly low across the airstrip in the small settlement of Florida before landing - the purpose of the flyover was to chase away the grazing cattle and horses.

The village of Florida which serves as a convenient starting point before heading out to Los Fierros is a remote picturesque rural place where life goes slowly on the banks of the Paraguá river. It's a small community of people that do live here; not more than 20 families.

The life is basic in the village, and is divided between shepherding animals, working on small fields, and fishing.

Having landed, we spent a few hours in the settlement and had lunch, however we spent one more day in Florida at the end of our journey since Greg flew in for us one day later than originally planned - and we really enjoyed our time here in this beautiful rural settlement.

Bush driving to Los Fierros

After lunch, the exhilarating bush drive to Los Fierros started with crossing of the Paraguá river - we used an interesting floating wooden bridge to reach the other side of the river.

Though it didn't look that optimistic at the first sight, the old 4WD van we went with managed occasional tricky sections quite well.

(Our skilled driver had to start his journey to La Florida 24 hours before our aircraft to arrive in the settlement on time - such challenging are the conditions of driving on muddy rainforest tracks).

From Los Fierros, we started to hike, continuously ascending through deciduous forest habitats on the lower slopes of the plateau we were aiming to reach on the next day.

We camped somewhere in the woods, more or less in the middle of our journey to the La Meseta table mountain.

Day 2: Reaching La Meseta

The national park’s most remarkable natural feature is the Huanchaca plateau (or the Caparú Plateau), a vast sandstone meseta (plateau) rising 500m above the surrounding rainforest to an elevated plain of grasslands and dry cerrado woodlands, from where spectacular waterfalls plunge down the sheer escarpment into the park’s rivers.

This isolated plateau covers over seven thousand square kilometres, just under half the park, and inspired Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s novel The Lost World – at least according to Colonel Percy Harrison Faucett, the legendary British explorer who was the first European to see the plateau when he came here in 1910 while demarcating Bolivia’s borders, and who later described the landscape to Conan Doyle in London.

The hike was a cruel endeavour; although we started quite early, the ascent was pretty long, and upper sections of the slopes were uncovered and thus not protecting us from the burning midday sun.

Nevertheless, it was a beautiful journey - once we left the forest, the views were really nice, and became prominent on the top at the escarpment line.

Having reached the plateau, we continued hiking in the eastern direction across beautiful savannahs.

The national park was established in 1979 as the Parque Nacional Huanchaca, and in 1988, it was renamed (and expanded) in honour of the pioneering Bolivian biologist and conservationist Noel Kempff Mercado, who was murdered by drug traffickers after stumbling across a secret cocaine laboratory on the Huanchaca plateau.

This moving history is still visible on the plateau - our guide showed us two "sights" when hiking across the vast meadows - a small crashed aeroplane (of drug smugglers) and a burnt motorbike on which another drug trafficker was killed by a hand grenade during a gunfight with government armed forces.

Apparently, this problematic cocaine past together with illegal lumber logging within the park boundaries is still present nowadays; a few upmarket tour agencies based in Santa Cruz even cancelled organized trips to Noel Kempff Mercado NP some time ago, quoting safety and lack of maintenance or governmental support for the park as their primary reasons and concerns.

The park remains still accessible, though, yet it may be a true challenge and a proper adventure nowadays.

Day 3: Hidden treasures of La Meseta

On the next day, we went for a short walk towards a small pond called La Piscina - a natural swimming pool formed by the river, and with a nice small waterfall creating a fun platform to jump off.

We spent a few hours at the natural pool, relaxing and enjoying this natural bath; it was sunny and warm, and we didn't want to venture any further.

In the upcoming evening, we hiked back across the grassy plains towards the escarpment line of La Meseta - here, we enjoyed a beautiful sunset in a really serene setting.

Day 4: Birth of a Day

Our last day of exploration of the mountain plateau started with a beautiful dawn - there were a few foggy clouds laying below us, slowly dispersing as the rising sun began to shine.

We watched the natural phenomenon peacefully, and after some hesitation we set out on the trail again, retracing our steps back to Los Fierros and further back to La Florida.

Here we stayed for one more day, hoping our pilot will come back for us - which he thankfully did :-).

Titicaca Lake & Isla del Sol

Let's move to a world-famous place at the Bolivian-Peru border now.

Our Bolivian adventure started in the capital of La Paz, and the famous lake of Titicaca naturally was the first fixture on the itinerary.

An undeniably calming and majestic sight, Lake Titicaca is the world’s largest high-altitude body of water.

An immense region both in terms of its history and the breadth of its magical landscape, the Titicaca Basin makes most people feel like they are on top of the world. Usually placid and mirror-like, the deep blue water reflects the vast sky back on itself.

All along the horizon on the Bolivian side it’s sometimes possible to see the icecaps of the Cordillera Real mountain chain.

There are more than seventy islands in the lake, the largest and most sacred being the Isla del Sol (Island of the Sun), an ancient Inca temple site on the Bolivian side of the border; Titicaca is an Aymara word meaning “Puma’s Rock”, which refers to an unusual boulder on the island.

We stayed on the island overnight; though two of our group were suffering with altitude sickness, it was still a magical place to spend some time on.

Rurrenabaque & Madidi National Park

Having visited Titicaca lake, we went on travelling to Rurrenebaque - with a short yet spectacular flight in a small aircraft from La Paz across Andean peaks.

On Rurrenabaque’ s doorstep, and covering nearly nineteen thousand square kilometres, Parque Nacional Madidi is home to some of the most diverse plant and animal life in South America.

The national park takes in a range of habitats, from the steaming lowland rainforests to 5500m Andean peaks. In altitude it ranges from less than 300m to over 5500m above sea level, encompassing a variety of Andean and Amazonian ecosystems that range from dense tropical rainforests and seasonally flooded savannahs to pristine cloudforest and glacial mountain peaks.

This little-trodden area is home to an astonishing variety of Amazonian wildlife: 44% of all mammals in North and South America, 38% of neotropical amphibian species, almost 1000 species of bird and more threatened species than any park in the world.

We arranged this adventurous trip with the reliable tourist agency called BalaTours, and left Rurrenabaque by boat on the Río Beni river.

After about 3 hours of travel we arrived at the Tacuaral Ecolodge, which is located on the banks of Río Tuichi inside the Madidi national park.

The real wonder of the park is its spectacular scenery and the bewildering complexity of the rainforest ecosystem, and one should treat viewing wildlife as a bonus rather than the main purpose of a visit to the park.

Having reached the lodge, we enjoyed lunch and rested for a while in hammocks, listening to sounds of the surrounding jungle.

In the afternoon, we walked with our guide around the lodge, exploring the area using footpaths made in the jungle, and crossing a water area with narrow wooden boats.

On the next day, we visited an area called Caquiawara, a salitral (flat basin whose fill is impregnated with salts) where we could saw parrots and macaws from a viewing deck.

In the afternoon, we walked on another path through surrounding jungle, and were explained the medicinal use of some of the thousands of species of plants found in the area.

In the morning of the next day, we visited an indigenous community living nearby (frankly I didn't like this human-zoo kind of a trip).

We spent our final afternoon in the jungle of Madidi once more exploring the ecolodge's surroundings, also trying to angle piranha fish (not being very successful though :-)).

Potosí

On a desolate, windswept plain surrounded by barren mountains at almost 4100m above sea level, Potosí is the highest city in the world, and at once the most fascinating and tragic place in Bolivia.

The conquistador never found El Dorado, the legendary city of gold, but they did get their hands on Potosí and its Cerro Rico, a ‘Rich Hill’ full of silver. A quote from the city’s first coat of arms sums up the Spanish bonanza: I am rich Potosí, the treasure of the world…

Cerro Rico was the richest source of silver the world had ever seen: its mines turned Potosí into the richest jewel in the Spanish emperors’ crown, and one of the world’s wealthiest and largest cities.

In the early seventeenth century its population was 160.000, far bigger than contemporary Madrid, and equal in size to London. However, this wealth was achieved at the expense of the lives of millions of indigenous forced labourers and African slaves.

Today, Potosí, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, is a treasure-trove of colonial art and architecture; it has more than two thousand colonial buildings, many of which have been restored. Hundreds of town houses and mansions remain, complete with red-tiled roofs and decorative balconies.

Potosí’s tragic history weighs heavily though, and is evident in the sense of sadness that seems to haunt its narrow streets and the appalling conditions still endured by miners at Cerro Rico.

We were travelling across Potosí on our way from Uyuni do Sucre, and spent a day in this remarkable city that is full of its moving past.

For the indigenous workers and imported African slaves who produced the city's wealth in the medieval age, the consequences were catastrophic. Staying deep underground for up to a week at a time and forced to meet ever more outrageous quotas, they died at a terrible rate; outside, the highly toxic mercury used in processing the silver posed an equal threat to workers in large foundries.

One sixteenth-century writer described the mines as a ravening beast that swallowed men alive.

Estimates of the total number who died over three centuries of colonial mining in Potosí run as high as nine million, making the mines a central factor in the demographic collapse that swept the Andes under Spanish rule.

From the end of the nineteenth century the city came to increasingly rely on tin mining – another metal found in abundance in Cerro Rico, but previously ignored. However, when the price of tin collapsed in 1985, the state-owned mines closed down or were privatized.

Though cooperative miners continue to scrape a living by working Cerro Rico’s tired old veins for tin and other metals, Potosí never recovered from the decline of silver production, much less the tin crash.

We explored the mines only to confirm we are living absolutely happy non-problematic lives in our homeland despite all the things we are used to complain about. A few hours in the mines were just enough for us to confirm that...

Reserva Nacional de Fauna Andina Eduardo Avaroa

Tucked away in the southwestern corner of Bolivia near the Chilean border is the remote Reserva Nacional de Fauna Andina Eduardo Avaroa.

It's a rough bumping road through marvellous barren landscapes to get there, yet very worth the effort - the desolate landscapes of the Reserva possess a surreal, otherworldly beauty.

This is a land of glacial salt lakes whose icy waters are stained bright red or emerald green by microorganisms or mineral deposits; of snow-capped volcanic peaks and frozen, high-altitude deserts; of rocky outcrops scoured by the unremitting wind into strange rock formations.

We visited the nature reserve on an organized trip from Tupiza (where we travelled by train from La Paz), using the reliable La Torre Tours tourist agency, and spent four days travelling across these eerie barren landscapes of Bolivian Altiplano, finishing our journey in Uyuni.

Our journey started with the visit of the Quebrada de Palala, a spectacular jagged rock formation, formed over many years by intense erosion of the mountainside. After that we headed on to the El Sillar where we enjoyed similar dramatic landscapes and rock formations.

We had lunch on vast plains with herds of llamas nearby - quite a special encounter for us to see these cute animals up close.

We continued on through Nazarenito, a small gold mining community, and admired beautiful red sand areas forming small dunes on the way.

Finally, we arrived at San Antonio de Lipéz (4260m, population 250) where we spent the first night in a rural basic accommodation.

On the next day, we were about to enter the land of lagunas (colourful high-altitude lakes) proper.

We got up fairly early, and headed through the abandoned ghost town of San Antonio, a village once famous for its wealth in gold. Then we passed Laguna Morejón and the area of the same name, with formations of eroded volcanic rock, and arrived at our first lagoon - Laguna Kolpa. Here, large amounts of raw material are still extracted for making soap.

The journey continued through the Salar the Chalviri to arrive at the hot springs just in time for lunch, and then further to Laguna Verde (4250m) - a saltwater lake which waters are emerald green due to the high mineral content of lead, sulfur, arsenic and calcium carbonates in its waters.

El Desierto de Dalí was our next stop, a place with mountains of surreal colours, reminiscent of the photos of Salvador Dalí, and with rock formations of petrified lava.

In the afternoon, we visited the large geyser field called Sol de Mañana (4850m). This geyser basin has bubbling mud pots, hellish fumaroles and a thick and nauseating aroma of sulphur fumes - the area is intensely volcanic and the temperatures within the mud pools can reach up to 90 degrees Celsius.

From there, we headed on to Wayllajara where we spent the second night of our adventurous road trip.

The first attraction of the third day was Laguna Colorada - a rusty-burnt-orange-hued lake (4278m) with masses of flamingos.

The salt lakes support large colonies of all three South American species of flamingo, including the world’s largest population of the rare James flamingo, one of the eighty different bird species found in the reserve.

The lake's rich red colour is derived from algae and plankton that thrive in the mineral-rich water, and the shoreline is fringed with brilliant white deposits of sodium, magnesium, borax and gypsum.

Heading on, we passed on through the Desierto de Siloli to visit the iconic Árbol de Piedra, a tree-shaped rock formation which has been worn away over the years by sand driven against its sides by the wind to form the distinctive shape.

We continued our journey across a series of lagoons to finally arrive at Laguna Hedionda - yet another beautiful high-altitude lake with small groups of flamingos in its waters.

In the afternoon we passed by the Ollagüe volcano which is classified as semi-active, as its crater is constantly releasing smoke.

We continued further through the Salar de Chiguana and crossed a railway line running from Uyuni to the Chilean border, and finally spent the night in the remote settlement of Puerta Chuvica.

Salar de Uyuni

The village of Puerta Chuvica is located at the edge of the Salar de Uyuni salt flats, and we used spare time in the evening to climb a small hill nearby to get fine views of both the settlement and the large white plains.

The gigantic cacti (Trichocereus pasacana) formed a beautiful sight to witness - they do grow really big!

The Salar de Uyuni is not a lake in the conventional sense: though below the surface it is largely saturated by water, its uppermost layer consists of a thick, hard crust of salt, easily capable of supporting the weight of a car.

An evocative and eerie sight, the world’s largest salt flat sits at 3653m. When the surface is dry, the salar is a pure white expanse of the greatest nothing imaginable – just blue sky and white ground around you. When there’s a little water, the surface perfectly reflects the clouds and the blue altiplano sky, and the horizon disappears.

Driving across this perfectly flat white expanse, with unbroken chains of snow-capped mountains lining the far horizon, it’s easy to believe you’re on another planet, so harsh and inhospitable is the terrain.

No less strange are the tenacious ecosystems that survive around its arid and salty margins, including colonies of cacti and other hardy plants, rabbit-like viscachas and flamingos that nest here during the rainy season. Equally hardy are the isolated communities of Aymara and Quechua campesinos eking out a marginal existence here.

We got up very early to catch the sunrise on the salt flats - and it was an amazing though very cold experience.

Then we headed to the spectacular Isla Incahuasi, otherwise known as Inkawasi, in the heart of the salar - this hilly outpost is covered by Trichocereus cactus and surrounded by a flat white sea of hexagonal salt tiles.

Leaving the salt bed, we visited the village of Colchani where the salt is processed, and a former salt hotel.

From there, we headed towards Uyuni where we finished this part of our journey.

Afterword

Stretching from the majestic icebound peaks and bleak high-altitude deserts of the Andes to the exuberant rainforests and vast savannahs of the Amazon basin, Bolivia embraces an astonishing range of landscapes and climates, and may serve as a destination encompassing all the different ecosystems one may think of when talking about South America.

Our three adventurous weeks spent in the country which is landlocked at the remote heart of South America brought us truly unforgettable experience of exploring some of the most unique landscapes on the Earth.

Footnotes

All images are exclusive property and may not be copied, downloaded, reproduced, transmitted, manipulated or used in any way without permission of the authors.

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FootNotes

All images are exclusive property and may not be copied, downloaded, reproduced, transmitted, manipulated or used in any way without permission of the authors.

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