With scores of rivers and lagoons, the Amazon watershed is best experienced by boat.  Matt and I booked four days aboard the Reina de Enin, a slow-floating houseboat that navigates the Rio Mamore.  Although we traveled only a small section of river near Trinidad, Bolivia, one can follow Mamore’s waters into Brazil, the Amazon River, and finally, the Atlantic Ocean.

The river that we rode was a shifting, changing beast: during the rainy season, sandy banks erode and new serpentine routes are cut.  The river regularly uproots both the surrounding landscape and bank-side communities, propelling a cycle of migration and rebirth.  Mature trees are a rarity in the jungle that surrounds the river, which more frequently supports undergrowth and small trees that have yet to fall in the river’s path.

Wildlife within Mamore and the surrounding jungle is just as lively and abundant.  Communities rebuild on the river’s banks because food is so plentiful: a net pulled behind a boat gathers fish for three days; crocodiles and turtles are harvested for their meat; and mango, banana, and coconut trees produce copiously.  During our time on the boat and in the jungle, Matt and I gawked at river dolphins, piranhas, caimans, turtles, monkeys, eagles, countless water birds, an anaconda, and capybaras (the world’s largest rodent!).

Our boat was managed by Barbara, a multi-lingual Portuguese native who moved to Bolivia after marrying a Bolivian.  Despite coordinating all food and activities for the boat – which on average generates $1000 USD in revenue per day – conducting all recruiting, and managing a staff of up to 25, Barbara earns what to our standards is a trifling sum – $600 USD per month.  I found myself reflecting on how capital begets capital (the boat’s owners purchased it 25 years ago and likely have enjoyed very healthy returns), whereas work typically begets only more work, with very little opportunity to save.

Barbara shortly would be traveling to recruit staff for the boat, and she complained to us of the difficultly she faces in recruiting local staff who demonstrate the work ethic that she wishes to see.  In Barbara’s words, “Most Bolivians live in the present, not in the future.”  Barbara believes that as a result of this orientation towards the present, many Bolivians are not economically ambitious regarding their futures: they do not attempt to get ahead in the same way that Westerners might.

Given the likelihood that Barbara’s staff earn under a third of what she makes – and perhaps do not earn a living wage – I might argue that local people’s lack of economic ambition derives from the absence of a path by which to increase their living standards.  I find Barbara’s comment about present and future orientation ironic, given that stressed out Americans frantically practice yoga in an effort to live more “in the present.”  Surely, there is an equilibrium to be found between these two worlds.