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Click
images for enlarged view
August 1st 1999/ Activities since 20th July.
The two reed boats, Kota Mama II and Viracocha, transported
by low loader and truck off the Bolivian Defensa Civil
organisation reached the city of Santa Cruz on 19th July.
Captain Jim Masters, the former Royal Engineer, who commanded
the convoy, will not forget their epic 600-mile journey
from Lake Titicaca. At Santa Cruz the flat cars of Empresa
Ferroviavia Oriental railway awaited them. Two mobile
cranes made short work of lifting the boats onto the train
and the next day with Lieutenant Chris Brogan, Royal Engineers
and two of the team riding 'Shotgun' they travelled East,
450 miles through the wild country to the town of Puerto
Saurez near the Bolivian - Brazilian border, where the
Bolivian Navy had cranes and low loaders ready to move
them to their base at Puerto Quijarro, 25 kilometres away.
Here Jim Masters has launched the boats and is now engaged
on sailing trials on the Canal Tamengo that links Bolivia
to the Rio Paraguay in Brazil.
Meanwhile Colonel John
Blashford - Snell has deployed exploration and community
aid teams. 'A' group under Captain Toby Marriner, Royal
Engineers, has just completed a two-week project with
the Chipaya Indians, who live in a remote corner of Bolivian
high desert, the Altiplano.
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Working at 13000 feet with the
temperatures plummeting to minus 20°C at night, this
team designed a flood prevention scheme and bridge, gave
medical assistance and studied this unique tribe, who
are quite unlike other South American Indians. Captain
Graham McElhinney of the Royal Army Dental Corps helped
the people by extracting 166 teeth! Anthropologist Shaun
Linsley examined the history and lifestyle of the Chipaya.
South and West of the Santa Cruz British and Bolivian
archaeologists have been seeking the ruins of lost civilizations.
British archaeologist Andy Miller located what is believed
to be the site of the fortress of Inca Huasi de Caraparicito.
First seen in 1913 by Dutch explorer Erland Nordenskiold
their remarkable settlement had disappeared and although
Nordenskiold made a plan of the major buildings he did
not give a location. The Kota Mama team searched a range
of mountains rising to 6000 feet, 200 miles
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south west of Santa Cruz and on
a high pass they found pottery, walls and water cisterns,
but there was no sign of the magnificent buildings reported
by old people and said to be populated by vampires, scorpions,
tarantula and rattlesnakes. However, the only casualty
was expedition photographer, Charles Sturge who was bitten
by a spider. Alas Inca Huasi has been almost completely
destroyed by a prospecting oil company and road builder
36 years ago. Thus, an important part of Bolivian national
heritage has been lost forever.
Inca Huasi is known as the last refuge of the Inca and
it was here that they were driven by the Gurani, a fierce
warrior tribe who swept up from the plains to drive the
Inca westward around 1400 AD. The expedition will
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be carrying out further investigations
into the origin of the Gurani and other tribes in the
dense Chaco forest of Northern Paraguay in the next 6
weeks. 50 miles west of Santa Cruz near the legendary
ritual site of Samaipata, Captain Stewart Seymour of the
Queens Dragoons Guards, working with Bolivian archaeologist
Alvaro Fernholz have identified fascinating twin fortresses
built by Amazon Indians that penetrated the highlands
around 900 AD. Excavating the jungle covered fortifications
they discovered significant buildings and a paved Inca
road built later in its development when the Inca expanded
the site. "The discovery of pottery enables us to date
the period of occupation and by finding the Inca road
a link between the mountains and the plains has been established.
This is a most important discovery." Said Alvaro Fernholz
who works for DINAAR, The Bolivian Institute of Archaeology
and Anthropology. Now all the exploration teams are regrouping
in Santa Cruz and in the period 2-6 August, will move
by train from this pleasant temperate region to the baking
heat and high humidity of Puerto Quijarro at the eastern
edge of the Matto Grosso where the boat team reports clouds
of biting insects and piranha infested rivers.
Note
on Samaipata
Only discovered in 1992 the mysterious carved mountain
top of Samaipata is believed to have been used as a site
of sacred rituals and ceremonies for 2000 years. According
to Dr Albert Meyers, the German archaeologist who discovered
it, the first occupants were Amazon jungle tribes who
carved figures of animals in the soft sandstone. Other
cultures, including the Inca Ossi developed the 12000
square meter site. Today the 5000-foot summit ridge is
covered in strange gigantic grooves, channels, walls and
alters. The outline of jaguars, puma and rhea (an ostrich
like bird) and rattlesnakes are clearly visible. Many
interpretations have been put forward ranging from the
plausible to the unlikely - the twin grooves hewn from
the living rock that point almost due East towards the
highest point have even been described as spaceship launching
rails! Efforts are being made to protect this, the largest
monument in the Americas but funds are urgently needed,
if the soft rock and the carvings are to be saved from
erosion. The Kota Mama expedition is assisting in the
further exploration of this area and attended a ceremony
on 20th July when UNESCO declared Samaipata a World Heritage
site. |
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