Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
military surplus aircraft to the Altiplano. Some landowners also made great fortunes during
the
cocaine
boomofthe1980sand1990s.Strategically positioned between thecoca-growing
Chapare and the markets to the north, the isolated ranches of the Beni provided the perfect
location for clandestine drug laboratories, and their private airstrips were ideal bases for the
light aircraft that used to smuggle the cocaine north, leapfrogging through the Amazon to Co-
lombia.
Into the twenty first century
With ongoing road construction having opened up the Amazon's natural resources for ex-
ploitation to an unprecedented degree, and with attendant settlement from the highlands con-
tinuing apace, the consequences for the environment have become ever more obvious over
the last decade or so: during the record-breaking
drought
of 2005, slash and burn fires flared
out of control, with the resultant incineration of around five thousand square kilometres. The
floods
of2011,meanwhile,weretheworstfordecades.Agovernmentscheduleofnewdams,
roads and oil exploration, moreover, presents ever more challenges both for the environment
and for an indigenous population already part of an ongoing struggle between conservation-
ists, coca-growers, settlers and loggers.
Rurrenabaque and around
Set on the banks of the Río Beni some 430km by road north of La Paz, the small town of
RURRENABAQUE
has emerged in recent years as the most popular ecotourism destination
in the Bolivian Amazon, and indeed one of the most popular tourist destinations in the whole
country, with some thirty thousand visitors annually. If you've just arrived from the hassle
and pollution of La Paz its appeal won't be long in beguiling you, as you're whisked from
the timber-roofed airport on a motorbike with the wind in your hair, to be dropped off among
some of the friendliest, most laidback people in the Beni. Picturesquely located on a broad
sweep of the Río Beni, between the last forest-covered foothills of the Andes and the great
lowland plains, Rurrenabaque - or “Rurre”, as it's known to its residents - is close to some of
the best-preserved and most accessible wilderness areas in the region, including the spectac-
ular rainforests of
Parque Nacional Madidi
and the
Reserva de Biosfera y Territorio Indí-
gena Pilon Lajas
, as well as the wildlife-rich pampas along the
Río Yacuma
. All of these
are easily visited with one of Rurrenabaque's staggering number of
tour agencies
.
Though
there's not a lot to see or do in the town itself - it's the kind of place you plan on visiting for
a few days and end up spending a week, month or even longer.
