Into Bolivia's Forgotten Amazon: The Moxos Expedition

The day begins at Tiwanaku, a ceremonial center whose origins date to the 4th century BC and whose cultural influence extended across the central Andes for centuries. After a guided walk through the semi-subterranean temple and past the Sun Gate, the group collects mountain bikes and rides 25 kilometers on dirt roads through the agricultural landscape surrounding Lake Titicaca, climbing 300 meters before descending to the shore. Lunch is at a farmhouse in the community of Jahuira Pampa before the final push to the lake. A boat crosses the minor lake to the Quewaya peninsula for the night.

Don Roberto, a local fisherman and guide, leads the morning on the water. The first destination is Kala Uta, a group of Aymara funerary towers at least five centuries old. From there the boat threads through totora reed beds to Pariti Island, where a small community museum holds an exceptional collection of Tiwanaku-era ceramics. The afternoon continues to Huatajata for a session in totora reed boat construction with Juan Carlos, whose family has built these vessels for generations and whose father once sailed one to the Galapagos Islands. The route ends at Copacabana, where the 17th century basilica houses Bolivia's most venerated Black Virgin.

The boat crosses to Isla del Sol, the cradle of Inca mythology, where the morning is spent at the Chinkana site in the north of the island. According to legend, this is where Viracocha gave birth to Manco Capac, the first Inca. A second crossing then reaches Isla de la Luna, home to around twenty Aymara families and the site of the Inca Virgins of the Sun, priestesses who dedicated their lives to the Inca sovereign. The Inac Uyu ruins are the most visible remnant of this history. The night is at Qhana Pacha, a small family-run hostel with exceptional lake and site views but no running water or electricity. Each bungalow has a private bathroom.

The morning is spent with Dona Esperanza, who farms, fishes, weaves, and manages the island's daily life with a routine that starts before dawn. She shares the preparation of wallaque, a traditional fish soup cooked in an earthen vessel, and demonstrates weaving patterns and their symbolic meanings. A group offering to the Qutamama, the spirit of the lake, is prepared and delivered by fishing boat. The return crossing to Copacabana takes around an hour and a half before the private drive back to La Paz, skirting the lake and the Cordillera Real along the way.

The group drives to La Cumbre pass above La Paz, where the muleteer team is waiting with the loads. The Choro trail is the pre-Inca route connecting the Altiplano to the Yungas, and the first task is a climb to the Apacheta Chukura pass at 4,870 meters before a long descent of 2,100 meters into the steep valleys below. The path follows ancient Inca paving stones through the communities of Samaña Pampa and Chukura, crossing rivers on footbridges. After seven hours of walking, the first camp is set at the old village of Challapampa at 2,520 meters. Tents and sleeping bags are provided.

The descent continues into the Yungas as the vegetation thickens and the air grows warmer and more humid. The ancient Inca stone path is well preserved in sections and serves as a thread through landscapes that change progressively from alpine to subtropical. The route crosses rivers on log bridges before a steady climb of around 900 meters elevation gain brings the group to a succession of undulating paths closing in on the Yungas proper. After five hours of walking, the camp at Buena Vista sits at 2,270 meters with a view back toward the mountains and forward over an ocean of green forest falling toward the tropical lowlands.

The final day of the Choro Trek descends 1,100 meters through increasingly dense cloud forest. From the first steps the trail plunges into thick vegetation, the Inca paving appearing in fragments as the path narrows. The route passes through Sandillani before arriving at the village of Chairo at 1,300 meters, the official end of the trail, where the vehicle is waiting. A short drive brings the group to Coroico, a town in the Yungas where the afternoon is free for swimming or walking. The UMA Experience Hotel is a high-comfort property in the hills above Coroico designed around its natural setting. Dinner is not included and is available on site a la carte or in town.

The Coroico River runs from the Andes toward the Amazon, fed by the same mountains the group descended the day before. A three-to-four-hour rafting descent covers 12 kilometers of Class 2 and 3 rapids, with a break at a waterfall midway. The second part of the river is gentler, the banks dense with birds and butterflies. Bolivia has one of the highest butterfly species counts in the world and many are concentrated in the Yungas, including transparent species and the emperor butterfly whose wingspan resembles a bird in flight. The night is at Finca Monte Cielo, an organic coffee estate at altitude above Taypiplaya, accessible by difficult track through forest.

The morning begins at a coffee farmers cooperative on the slopes above Taypiplaya. A guided visit covers every stage of production from hand-picking and selection through roasting to the cup. The cooperative has invested in a reforestation programme and the group contributes a tree planting during the visit. A shared meal with cooperative members, cooked from local produce, follows before the five-and-a-half-hour drive north into the Amazon plains. The landscape shifts from mountain forest to open savannah as the Moxos region opens up, an immense flood plain that sustains one of the most biodiverse ecosystems on the continent. San Borja is the main town in the region, its streets carrying a frontier character.

At the Reserva de Biosfera del Beni headquarters on the outskirts of San Borja, the group joins the forest ranger team for a two-day conservation mission. The track into the reserve is a thin ochre ribbon through dense Amazonian vegetation, changing with every season as the forest regrows and the channels shift. The ranger commander briefs the group on the bioindicator survey: recording GPS coordinates of specific animal species, including caimans, tortoises, and peccaries. Equipment is loaded onto a boat and the patrol moves onto the Maniqui River, a tributary of the Amazon. The group camps alongside a Tsimane riverside community, who are active participants in the reserve's management.

The second day in the reserve begins with the continuation of the bioindicator survey before the patrol switches to horses for the afternoon. The horse route covers the tall grasses and forest islands of the Moxo pampas, the distant remnants of Moxos civilization visible in the raised ground of the islands rising above the flood plain. The patrol may reach the Normandia Lagoon before turning back as the light changes. Marcos Uzquiano, known as El Tigre Gente, the Jaguar Man, may join the patrol if available. A former ranger expelled from Madidi for exposing illegal mining and breaking a jaguar tooth trafficking network, he is one of the most significant conservation figures in Bolivian Amazonia.

San Ignacio de Moxos was effectively isolated from the rest of Bolivia until a new road opened access to a region that previously flooded for half the year, leaving the other half connected only by tracks among the worst in Amazonia. The Jesuit mission church here is an intact example of the indigenous-European baroque fusion that defines the Chiquitania, its colourful facade and wooden columns in daily use by the community. The town's luthier, who decorates instruments with bone powder, and the Cacique of the Judios indigenous group, who performs Mojeño music on instruments whose traditions trace to the mission period, both receive the group. The museum holds original sheet music recovered from the surrounding forest.

A two-hour drive reaches Puerto Geralda on the Rio Mamore, one of the Amazon's principal tributaries. The Mamore is several hundred meters wide and carries millions of tonnes of Andean sediment north through the continent. The Tambaqui is waiting at the port, a private river vessel designed for ten passengers with three cabins, an on-deck dining table, hammocks on the aft deck, and a chef. The afternoon is spent learning the rhythms of the river as the boat moves slowly north through riparian forest, the first pink dolphins appearing at the bends of meanders. Indigenous pirogues pass in both directions. Caiman spotting begins after dark from the upper deck.

The Tambaqui sails north through a landscape at the crossroads of riparian forest, Moxo pampas, and palm savannah interspersed with swamp and rainforest islands. The route varies with the season and the river's shifting course. Indigenous communities appear on the banks and the boat stops for visits with Mojenos, Yuracare, and Trinitario peoples, eighteen distinct indigenous groups live in the Beni, half of all Bolivia's indigenous peoples. An afternoon walk into the riverside forest follows the tracks of animals, including tapir, anaconda, and jaguar. The Mamore's scale becomes apparent only from the river itself, the opposite bank sometimes invisible through river mist.

Pink river dolphins follow the Tambaqui through the meanders of the Mamore, appearing regularly at the surface alongside the boat. Local knowledge holds that pink dolphins mark safe swimming areas, and where they swim, the group swims. The morning walk enters old-growth forest to find the Mapajo, Ochoa, and Bibosi, among the largest trees in the Amazon basin. Animal tracks are read throughout. An anaconda, tapir, or jaguar is possible but not promised. Fishing in the afternoon may mean sharing the catch with the dolphins. Caiman patrol after dark closes the final night on the river.

A light boat crosses the network of secondary channels separating the El Masi Yuracare community from the Mamore. The community lives from fishing and hunting with subsistence agriculture, and invites the group out in narrow pirogues. A short walk from the community reaches a loma, one of the artificial earthen mounds built by the Moxos civilization across the Beni flood plain. Equipped with an archaeological survey programme, the group records ceramic fragments and traces of canals in coordinates feeding the research database of archaeologists currently rewriting the history of pre-Columbian Amazonia. A specialist provides context for discoveries being made at pace across the region.

A domestic flight connects Trinidad to Santa Cruz, the only domestic flight in the expedition. The afternoon is spent in Porongo, a village 25 kilometers from Santa Cruz across the Pirai River. The village square is anchored by a small Jesuit church, a quieter and less touristed mission than those of the Chiquitania circuit. The visit ends with an asado, a full-ceremony Santa Cruz barbecue prepared by local hosts in the traditional style: generous portions, long tables, and a cook who takes the event seriously. The night is at the Cosmopolitano Hotel in the historic center of Santa Cruz.

A private transfer from the Cosmopolitano Hotel to Viru Viru International Airport. The drive takes approximately 35 to 40 minutes from the historic center depending on traffic.