Here Again

Hello world,
The next season is approaching. We will leave for Bolivia on the 2nd of August and will stay 2 months. This blog, from now on, is alive again.

Meanwhile you can have a look at this recently published paper: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jas.2010.02.011 which already had some press coverage http://www.aolnews.com/article/amazonian-indians-more-advanced-than-we-knew/19531559

Stay tuned.
Ciao
Umberto

Pedro

The 2009 field work is finished. We spent 6 days in Santa Cruz in order to send the samples to Bern. While there, I met a friend of mine, Pedro Nuni, who is a MAS parliament candidate for the next election in Bolivia. In this picture he is together with the President Evo Morales. I took the photo yesterday, Sunday, during a celebration in the CIDOB. I hope I can visit Pedro in La Paz next year.

No limits

We solved the problem! there is a very easy way to work in the lakes: learn to walk on the water:-))

We thanks our Anna for the photos, she is the official reporter of the blog:-)

Mamorè

With the help (paid help...and a bit expensive...) of Bolivian Army, we navigated the northern part of Mamorè river, in the area of Puerto Siles.

In the photo, Bernhard San, the "Marin" and me.

We did it

Many thanks to la Chcca, Seri, Leo and napalm boy for their suggestions on how to get to the center of the lake. At the end we decided to adopt the local caretòn technology and it worked!!!...well...we had to transport by hand all the rest of the equipments for the last 250 meters, after opening a path into the floating vegetation -yomomo-

Fritzcarrald would be proud of us (have you seen the movie?).

Buscando el tesoro

The first time we stepped here was 2006. Henne and I. It was clear since then that, under our feet, there was the treasure!! We went there again in 2007, with Heinz and in 2008, when I had a face to face with a very friendly snake who decided to share our trench with me…but, despite 3 visits, there was still something missing. Today, Sunday 13 of September, after 4 years of thinking about what was going on with the isla, we (me together with ….you know what I mean…. Bernardo Por-ahì San) did the last day of field work. Now we have a plot! To be continued – I hope- in a scientific journal:-)

First attempt

Hi, here two photos of our first attempt to get to the lake: walking.
Unfortunately, we were only able to cross 115 meters of mud... the Waker was too heavy and the mud too muddy:-)
But we still believe that "se pueede". We maybe need some medium of transportation technically evolved....something like the 007`s car. Let's see if we find anything similar here in the Beni.
Stay tuned!