We got up at 7:00 and loaded the bus and headed to the local market. I'm always leery of eating in markets so I just had coffee but most others sampled the fruits. We returned to the hotel where I gave a brief lecture introducing the tectonic development of Bolivia and the Central Andes .

Todd outlined the plan for the next couple of days and then we got on the bus and drove for a couple of hours to the 100,000 Hectare logging concession in La Chonta National Forest . There was a brief delay where a logging truck had not been able to summit a hill and had rolled backward. Its trailer went off the road and the cab blocked our way. It carried an enourmous log more than 1.5 m in diameter. Leiman and Erwin, our drivers, managed to squeeze the bus around the problem and we were on our way.

La Chonta National Forest is a humid forest but we are visiting it during the dry season. Originally, it was logged for mahogany. By the time the new forestry management laws came in, it was pretty much logged out and other commercial spieces began to be exploited. Bolfor, the National Forestry Agency, in cooperation with U.S. Aid has set up a wide range of forestry management experiments that attempt to quantify nearly every aspect of the forest harvesting and regrowth. Companies that comply with the practices recommended for harvesting, based on these data, are able to sell their product as certified wood, which is more marketable in North America and Europe .

Marielos and Todd took us to several experimental plots and explained different logistical and experimental aspects of each. There are some really big trees in there. The buttressed ficus trees are the most impressive with basal diameters of over 5 m when the buttresses are included. We walked for several km through the impossibly dense forest over established access trails before returning to the project campsite.

The campsite is a large cleared area with a dining hall. Two blue-green macaws sat in a tree above the building. We set up our tents under tarps to keep off the intense heat of the day. Marielos and I shared one of the tarps.

A woman from Santa Cruz cooked the meals. Dinner was simple but filling. Ricardo, our trail blazing machete man built a big campfire. Most of us took “showers” by dipping a cup in a bucket of cool water and dumping it over our heads. We stayed up until midnight drinking and telling stories.

Last updated
May 7, 2007