Beni River Trip: Day 1 - July 7, 2010

I am sorry this has taken so long but here is the story on our river trip. Since it was just too exciting to summarize in one post, I decided to take you day by day through our journey by writing one post per day, basicly copying my journal from the trip. Check back regularly for more updates from our river trip.


Day 1 - July 7, 2010

We were somewhat rushed getting ready to leave for our river trip since last minute we were told the trip date had been moved up because the river water level was dropping fast and getting dangerously low. We were hardly unpacked from our San Jose/Santiago trip before we started packing for this trip.

Greg, our mission pilot, flew Jenna, Noah, and I to the city of Trinidad and then to San Joaquin in the Beni region of Bolivia where we met up with our boat. The Beni is the northeastern part of Bolivia and consists of many rivers, all part of the Amazon basin river system. This is the more “jungle” or rainforest part of Bolivia.

We were wondering how Noah would fair the ride in a small aircraft. He slept. Noah never ceases to amaze us just how easy going he his. He has handled all the traveling we have put him through in his short life as if he was born for such a lifestyle, much to his parents’ relief. The flight was a little turbulent but it was beautiful watching the Bolivian landscape from the air. As we flew further from the more developed parts of Bolivia, trees reclaimed the land broken only by snaking rivers and oxbow lakes. In some of these oxbow lakes I could see giant Victoria Lilies, the worlds largest lily pads, from the air. It was beautiful to see so much land yet uncut and un-carved by humans.

San Joaquin, the port where we met the boat

In Trinidad, while Greg refueled the plane, Jenna and I desperately searched for sustenance since we had missed lunch. We found a restaurant but they were not serving anything since it was between lunch and dinner (they have much more defined meal times here). After much debate, we managed to finagle a few pieces of bread from them. They could not understand why on earth we wanted to buy just the bread they were going to make into sandwiches to sell later.

Armadillo for dinner

Once in San Joaquin we made our way down to the river where we boarded the two boats (tied together to make one super boat) that would be our home for the next 10 days. We ate a dinner of rice, eggs, bread, and stewed armadillo (boney but good). Afterwards the crew pulled out their instruments and belted out some Spanish worship songs. It was beautiful to listen to them on the river under a clear night sky dusted with billions of stars. Little did I know those songs would be played morning, day, and night at every conceivable opportunity for the next 10 days. I crawled into my hammock and attempted to construct a mosquito net over me. It was, to borrow the current common vernacular in the States right now that I learned on our breif visit back, an “epic fail”. It would take me another two nights to perfect the use of a mosquito net over a hammock.

Chilling with Noah in my "bed"