The Road to Trinidad, Part 3: The Drowned Land

Never in my life had I seen so many mosquitoes. A blizzard of the bloodsuckers swarmed into the naked street lamps above, wave after wave flying from the shadows into the light, being obliterated from existence.

And the frogs had finally materialised. They'd been constantly audible since I descended into the tropics, yet strangely invisible. Now they were in plain sight, loitering all over the endless mud and puddles.

Other than that, there wasn't much happening in San Ignacio de Moxos. The town was empty. One of the few signs of life when I’d arrived, was four guys cutting the big lawn of the main plaza with machetes. Painfully slowly, obviously a never-ending job.

I’d walked from the airport, as the road to town didn't seem too long from the sky above. But of course it was far longer at ground level. And mired. My heavy backpack cut into my shoulders as the funeral party came past one by one, taking turns to use the same motorbike taxi.

A couple of them gave me a wave. Another threw a spent tissue into the bushes (were they still crying??) Even One Eye gave me a surly nod.

I checked into the first hotel I came to. It was surprisingly decent. Less surprising, was the news the road to Trinidad was a no-go.

Yet there was a way out – by boat – though it might take a day or two.

So I stocked up on the limited supplies the town had to offer, and headed out first thing in the morning. The colectivo van I took was stuffed full. Fourteen passengers in total, plus their usual sacks of unidentified goods, gas cylinders, etc. – yet also somehow squeezing in an antique motorbike. Next to me sat a girl who carefully held a polystyrene box.

We bumped and slopped down the boggy road until we pulled up alongside a swamp. I’d expected a big riverboat like in the Amazon. How stupid of me. Instead, we were somehow loaded onto a little thing with an outboard motor.

There was no clear stretch of water to be seen. Trees and bushes climbed out of the dark waters. Masses of branches and vines intertwined, all shades of green and brown.

After taking our seats, we set off through one of the few gaps in foliage – only to quickly stand again to avoid fast-approaching branches. The boatman steering the motor tried to weave the vessel through them, but they came thick and fast, clawing us from every direction.

The branches only hit me a few times, but the other boatman up front got swept over by a bush he desperately tried to divert us from. Tumbling backwards, losing his cap in the water. He looked embarrassed. Everybody else thought it was hilarious.

We soon reached an open tract of water that was obviously a real river during dry season. It slinked its way through the green mass, allowing us to stay seated for a few minutes at a time without ducking or standing.

The girl with the polystyrene box now opened it. Inside was a tiny baby bird. Black. Ugly. Probably only a few days old, with spindly jutting bones, bulging eyes still sealed, and a craggy mouth that squawked as she fed it mashed banana.

The dense vegetation was punctuated now and again by the occasional bird or wildfowl. There were also black and yellow monkeys, screeching as they scrambled in terror from the oncoming boatful of humans. Two beautiful parrots flew over the boat fighting. But best of all, I saw the arse of what was definitely a large grey cat as it escaped through the trees.

When I mentioned it, one of the boatmen couldn’t believe it. He said it was probably a jungle puma. In all his years he’d never seen one.

Our little river merged with a broader one, its tight curves gradually unfolding until we came out of the forest and reached the edge of an expanse of semi-flooded bush land. We had to go straight through the thick bush. The initial small channel soon disappeared, leaving us caught up in branches and leaves, the engine quickly entangled as it tried to churn its way through. Choking, choking. Finally dying.

The two boatmen used poles to punt us further into the thick of it, but it became too difficult for them, so we all had to help. By that stage, the boat had become engulfed by grasshoppers, flies, and mosquitoes. The latter attacked our legs, but were in turn attacked by squadrons of dragonflies – most cool to watch.

Finally, we came to a clearing, and the clearing came to stream, and the stream to a river.

And on we continued.

Snaking through endless floodscapes.

Over fields and grasslands with submerged barns.

Over waters so still, they mirrored everything above and around, making it difficult to discern what was real and what was reflection. Surreal. Enchanting.

I spent a lot of the morning talking to a family of five children and a miserable mother who were travelling to study in Santa Cruz. The boys liked me so much, they wanted to introduce me to their older sister who lived there, hoping we'd get married. They also tried to get me to drink the river water. It's safe, they assured me as they swigged away at the yellow-brown liquid.

Miserable Mama was in charge of preparing lunch. The conditions were rotten – hygiene not an issue on expeditions like this. I wouldn't have minded if it'd tasted nice, but the huge soup she brewed-up was totally flavourless, and looked worse than the river water.

By mid-afternoon my arse was numb and my exposed limbs somehow burning from the diffused sunlight. Plus I was still hungry. Every time I pulled out something from my bag of munchies, 15 pairs of hungry eyes followed my hand to my mouth.

I was the only person to have brought food along. The torment was too much to inflict, so I offered out my supplies. Everybody accepted instantly. There was no formal politeness, they took as much as they could, with everything gone in seconds.

At approximately 6pm we saw the first human settlement – a miniature farm where we stopped to stretch our aching legs, and whose owners kindly offered us drinks.

The skies were clear as we set off again, making me realise that, amazingly, it hadn't rained all day. Of course that was the cue for it to start hammering down – just as we got lost in another field.

We quickly took refuge under plastic sheeting. When it stopped, we poked our heads out to find we were alongside the battered highway to Trinidad. The road I stupidly thought I’d be travelling down.

It was so chopped and churned, it seemed impossible to walk along, let alone drive – yet somehow a broken-down truck had managed to get that far. We picked up one of its passengers who was waiting at a house nearby for the next passing vehicle, which could've taken days.

Night soon tumbled, and our safe passage was left to the mercy of the two fat boatmen and their punting poles, and a couple of dim torches. The sky was beautiful and clear again, thousands of stars shone their light upon us.

I laid down on the damp filthy footboards to ease my aching back. From there got a better view of our galaxy, the universe and infinity beyond.

I saw Orion. I saw Sirius. I saw Pleiades, too.

One day we'll be there, just me and you..

The portly punters were very funny. They'd been laughing and cracking jokes all day, and were now finding it highly amusing that we were caught up in a alley of vines, with everyone spooked by the ghost-like fingers of branches that came out of the darkness to tear at us.

What they found even funnier was when the older punter ‘accidently’ smacked my head various times with his punting pole. Each apology – 'Desculpe meeestairrr!' – was followed by hard laughter. The bastards.

Just as I managed to doze off, we finally arrived. It was 11pm. Spot on time, despite the whole route being improvised. Most impressive.

We clambered off the boat and stumbled through the semi-darkness to the little port captain's office. There, the punters called for a lift to drive us down the remaining unflooded 15km into Trinidad.

The lift, on a day like this, of course wasn’t normal. It was a dirty great petrol tanker. Our seats were its roof.

I climbed its greasy ladder to discover the roof was already piled high with plantains. I found a seat among them and waited as the family and a few others got themselves together (Miserable Mama's screeches about a lost bag cutting the silence of the dark muggy air).

I'm not sure what happened to the rest of the passengers. The impatient driver couldn't wait any longer and just roared off, leaving the poor buggers behind.

His beast of a vehicle didn’t take any shit from the mud, ripping through it to quickly reach a paved road. On that, we bombed towards our destination. I tightened the strap of my hat to stop the wind taking it, but it was still blown clean off (hopefully found in the morning by a passing peasant who'd cherish it as much as I'd done).

The truck pulled into a desolate industrial estate on the edge of town. Strangely, motorbike taxis were waiting for us. In the ensuing confusion, I left the family without saying goodbye and jumped on a motorbike which followed the one Young Portly Punter was on.

We raced down the long, lively midnight streets. The bright lights of humanity after the wilderness, the weight of my backpack dragging me backwards, the image of YPP's girth spilling over the sides of his bike – it all made for an adrenaline cocktail that blew my mind. A rush. Euphoria. The kind of high that fuels my addiction to the road.

But as I correctly sensed, it was far from over.

We sped through the lavish main plaza (which in contrast to the other jungle towns, was full of young party people) and continued away from the centre. My backpack really cut into my shoulder blades, pulling hard on my spine, until we reached the surprisingly un-dodgy bus depot where YPP worked and slept. He pointed me in the direction of a hotel as we said goodnight and agreed to meet again.

I rang the buzzer and woke the hotel porter. He informed me, in a very pleasant manner considering he was still half asleep, that the place was full, but told me where else to try. I tried, but that too was full. Shit.

I walked back through the empty streets to the bus depot, where I luckily flagged down a passing motorbike taxi. He took me to a hotel back in the centre, but it was way too expensive.

Nearby was a street full of small hotels, all of which were todo completo as well.

What was going on??

I was resigned to sleeping on a bench in the plaza, but then got speaking to two girls who told me it was carnival week. Duh. How hadn't I realised?

They took a shine to me and escorted me to a hotel which surprisingly had an available room. Though not that surprisingly – it was a shit hole. They thought I was Brazilian because of my accent, and one spoke Portuguese as she came from the border regions.

As I thanked them and bid them goodnight, she gooily asked to meet me the following day. I agreed, knowing I wouldn't, then retired to my dank and dirty quarters.

It was bliss to get the pack off my back. I set the archaic ceiling fan in motion and collapsed onto the bed that stank the least.

Wow, what a day. What a week.

It'd taken land, air and water, but I was finally in Trinidad. Plus I now had carnival to look forward to, too.

Still high, I slipped into a deep sleep.

#sanignaciodemoxos #bolivia #trinidad #southamerica #latinamerica