Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
THE RAILWAY TO NOWHERE
Guayaramerín is the last navigable point on the Río Mamoré , the most important water-
way in the Bolivian Amazon. Downstream from Guayaramerín a series of nineteen catar-
acts and rapids , stretching for over 400km down the ríos Mamoré and Madeira, cuts off
the Bolivian river network from Brazil and access to the Atlantic Ocean. During the rubber
boom, Bolivians and foreign speculators dreamed of bypassing these rapids and opening
up the Bolivian Amazon to trade with the world. In 1872 the US journalist and speculator
George Church formed a company to build a railway circumventing the rapids. Yet the
crews sent to begin the work met with immediate disaster: their boats sank, and ravaged
by fever and Indian attacks the workforce abandoned their equipment and fled through the
forest. Church's company went bankrupt and the contractors concluded that the region was
“a welter of putrefaction where men die like flies. Even with all the money in the world
and half its population it is impossible to finish this railway.”
Church himself was undeterred, and by 1878 had raised enough financial support to
launch another attempt, with equally disastrous consequences. By the time the project was
abandoned three years later, five hundred workers had died but only 6km of track had been
laid. But the dream of a railway around the rapids would not die. In 1903 Brazil prom-
ised to complete the project in compensation for the annexation of the Acre territory from
Bolivia. Work began again in 1908, and three years later the Madeira-Mamoré Railway -
or the Devil's Railway , as it had become known - was finally completed. More than six
thousand workers are thought to have died in its construction, a sacrifice that was quickly
showntohave been made invain, since the railway opened forbusiness just asthe Amazon
rubber boom collapsed. The Brazilian government kept it running until 1972, when it was
finally abandoned, its rusting rails, swallowed by encroaching jungle, providing an elo-
quent testimony to a failed dream of progress in the Amazon.
GETTING AROUND
By motorbike taxi The principal mode of transport; standard journeys in town cost Bs3;
there's also a fleet of rickshaw taxis charging around Bs10.
Motorbike rental You can rent motorbikes on the southeast side of the plaza for Bs15/hr or
Bs80/24hr, though you'll have to leave your passport as a deposit.
CROSSING THE BRAZILIAN BORDER
Via Guajará-Mirim From the port at the bottom of Av Federico Román, regular passenger
boats (every 15min; Bs10) make the five-minute crossing to Guajará-Mirim in Brazil. The
Bolivian migración (Mon-Fri 8am-8pm, Sat & Sun till noon) is to the right of the port as you
face the river: you should get an exit stamp here if you're continuing into Brazil but it's not
Search WWH ::




Custom Search