About Us

WHO WE ARE

The owner. Paula Sánchez Iraola, Native Guaraní born in Tarija. She’s a well known resident and social leader of the town of San Buenaventura (town on the other side of the Beni River). Mother of four, her warm, caring and humble personality has helped her in achieving good relationships with practically everyone: Mayors, Governors, town people, natives, guides; everybody appreciates the positive disposition of this great mother of Madidi. A person worried about justice; a very politically active environmental activist that worries and cares about human, animal and plant lives. This reflects to what MADIDI TOURS stands for: an ecologically and socially sensitive agency.

Madidi Camp.  Ms. Paula is the last person to register and achieve an operation permit inside Madidi National Park. She obtains her operation area on the Tuichi river valley, where all the agencies with operation areas have their camps; but she was lucky to be the last one since her area is the last and deepest inside of all, and thus further away from other tourists and possible hunters. It’s a place with the highest level of animal sightings, and where no other tourists travel to.  Park Keepers visit temporarily the camps and the trails, and in their revues have qualified the Madidi Camp trail as the best one there is. Madidi Camp operates as a true Eco-Camp where there is no necessity to use gasoline to run pumps that provide running water for showers and flush toilettes. Here we keep the true feel of nature, bathing on the river and cooking with fire wood, while we focus to keep you as comfortable as possible providing mattresses, mosquitoe nets, hammocks, and an overall quality, secure and friendly family-like service.

Pictures of Madidi Camp Facilities:

The Resting quarters, with raised floor, matresses with mosquitoe nets and hammocks.

The firewood Based Kitchen

The agency Since 2008 began to operate a small agency that offered quality and secure services called Camping Madidi tours. The good relationship the owner had with the employees made the guiding services so good, that all travelers that hired them came out extremely happy and recommended the agency from mouth to mouth.. Today, the agency continues in the construction of an ecologically and socially responsible agency.

Guides.  Before tourism existed in Rurrenabaque, work options for locals where different: The extraction of tropical hardwoods, animal hunting for meat and skin sales, capture of live wild animals for pets, agriculture, the extraction of rubber; recollection of wild fruits like cocoa, brazil nut, etc.  Some of these practices are not very sustainable to the environment, such as logging and hunting.  With the arrival of tourism, many people, in their majority Tacana indigenous natives, found a sustainable work alternative better for nature and themselves. The knowledge inherited from their parents and grand parents about plants and animals in the jungle, along with the experiences acquired working in the forest, have been very useful for them in performing their jobs as tourism guides.

History is not so beautiful. In a beginning, the first tourism agencies began to hire these wood cutters and hunters as guides. They knew well the jungle and its perils. With the excuse to capacitate them and teach them how to become guides, these agencies would pay them miserable salaries (6 dollars per day).  The guides, with the hope of one day being able to dedicate to this more satisfying job, consented these salaries and mistreatment and continued working like this for many years.

With time, growth in touristic affluence resulted in capacitation courses being imparted to the guides by biologists and tourism experts. With this, the guides received certification. Their salaries rose, but not enough. Their life experience in the forest, in addition to their experience as guides, is like a vast encyclopedia of knowledge that is terribly remunerated. Also, their work load is very heavy. They have to walk long distances, leave their families for days, carry heavy backpacks, find their way through the forest, watch for the safety of the tourists, arrive to set up camps, take the tourists out to walk at night, and in many occasions deal with negative and unrespectful  attitudes from them. This makes this job one of the most physically and emotionally demanding and thus worse payed jobs there is.  Making justice to this specific issue is one of the greatest goals of Camping Madidi Tours.

With time, growth in touristic affluence resulted in capacitation courses being imparted to the guides by biologists and tourism experts. With this, the guides received certification,  their salaries rose, but not enough. Their life experience in the forest, in addition to their experience as guides, is like a vast encyclopedia of knowledge that is terribly remunerated. Also, their work load is very heavy, they have to walk long distances, leave their families for days, carry heavy backpacks, find their way through the forest, watch for the safety of the tourists, arrive to set up camps, take the tourists out to walk at night, and in many occasions deal with negative and unrespectful  attitudes from them. This makes this job one of the most physically and emotionally demanding and thus worse payed jobs there is.  Making justice to this specific issue is one of the greatest goals of Camping Madidi Tours.

Meet our guides

René Tirina. He is by far the best guide there is in all of Rurrenabaque. A native Tacana from the community of Caijene, he’s been born in the jungle, raised in the jungle, lives and works in the jungle. He inherited great knowledge from his father especially about medicinal plants. He began working with tourism from the beginning and did many year long studies with Biologists.  One of his greatest qualities, besides his professionalism, is his character adaptability. If he’s with serious tourists that require lots of respect, properness, privacy and seriousness, he will perform outstandingly and the tourists will leave satisfied. If he’s with young outgoing, joky tourists, he will be like them and for shure will give them a thrill. There is no way no go wrong with this man. He is a sage, a shaman, a guide, an entertainer, and for shure, a friend.

Juan Carlos Quete.  Translated literal transcription from oral interview. Hello amigos, I’m going to tell you my story of my life just like you would like it and it will interest you. I was born in the jungle and raised in the jungle until I was 17 in a small place called Carmen del Emero, that when I was little was inhabited by only two families, there was no school, there was nothing and I didn’t study. I learned everything: the noises, walking, from the jungle. How to hunt, how to build traps, how to hunt fish, there was no hooks, only arrows, toxics,  traps like Rambo, pure bambi, tapir, monkeys, birds. I would eat anaconda, I would eat all the animals that there is on the ground. Everything there is on the ground can be eaten and it’s more healthy and clean than all the chemicals that are eaten today.

My father taught me how to survive in the jungle. Where I live (lived) there are seven lagoons. There are Pampas, anacondas, caimans; there are all the animals that you can find inside Madidi Park. There I learned about all the medicines there are in the jungle. The jungle is a whole hospital. Complete. My branch (of study) is botany.

Carmen del emero is on the Beni River two days of travelling distance. I was born in 1961. My father had 10 women. Now we are 29 brothers and sisters. My father has 102 years of age. He was born in Ixiamas. He can speak Tacana, Aimara, Quechua, Spanish and Portuguese.

Why did he go to live to Carmen del Emero?  My father liked it there. Because there were many animals to hunt, because there were big lagoons and was tranquil, far away from people, in clean air, you don’t pay taxes. Now he lives back in Ixiamas. In the year 1973 began to arrive more people, eight families. Now there are around 60 families. There is a school, soccer courts, basketball courts, big schools and big teams.

What do people do there for a living? They do agriculture: citrics, lots of cocoa and also coffee. Hunting and fishing. I studied in military school at 18. I learned to read and write. From there I worked with Tico Tudela in Tuichi tours (now fluvial tours). I’ve been capacitated; I got capacitating courses as guide. In 2005 I had my first capacitating.

Why don’t you work for tico anymore? Because he doesn’t pay enough. He pays 60 bolivianos. That’s why he almost has no guides, everybody leaves. I like working as a guide because I love my job. Even though I don’t speak English or French, only Spanish. I’m a patient guide, I like to listen. I like to do everything well, to explain about the jungle--

Carlos worked with tourism from the beginning. At first, the type of tourism that arrived to Rurrenabaque was mostly scientific. Most trips lasted 20 days. Carlos accompanied more than twenty scientific expeditions to different far away places. One of them was to his place of birth, where they studied the Mutun, a bird that looks like a turkey.

They went to study this bird for a month. They studied his blood. They say his blood is medicinal-

In another case I accompanied an expedition for twenty days to río negro, about four days away of river travelling. There they studied the Mamaco, a black bird similar to a fine Cock. They recorded its calling on a CD.

I accompany scientists to study plants, medicinal, toxic. Others studied worms, butterflies, snails. All, for more than twenty days.

Motor boat operators. 

It’s possible to access many untouched places thanks to river transport. This is the biggest expense of all in a tour operation. Part of this expense goes to a very important worker than goes unnoticed most of the time:  the motor boat operators.

Navigation in foot of the Andes Amazon Rivers is not simple. There are many dangers like logs, rocks and currents that can hit, harm or flip the boat. In the dry season, some rivers are barely navigable like the Tuichi, where a great deal of skill is required to climb the many shallow water rapids there are in it.  This man is not only extremely experienced and attentive to any dangers, but also keeps an eye to any animal that may appear on the river shores, in such case stopping the boat and pulling close to it so you can see it and take pictures.

Raomir Hirosev. He was born in a community deep inside Madidi Park called Torewa and lived there until he was eight when his family moved to the town of San Buenaventura. The only way to travel to and from his community is by boat, so he’s been on the river since he was born. His modern life took him all the way to Japan, country from which he brought his most favorite toy: A first generation GPS instrument. His favorite pastimes are exploring new places and walking deep into the jungle to find new routes by himself. He’s the agencies’ official GPS operator when we go on exploratory expeditions, besides being the principal boat driver “Motorista”. 

Cooks

All trips are operated in the company of a cook. This job is very demanding and should not be considered less. Especially on trekking trips, these warriors have to walk with the groups carrying heavy backpacks, arrive to camp and cook, boil water for drinking, wash dishes and pots in the stream, etc. Not only they have learned how to cook to meet the demanding palates of tourists, but have to do it under extreme conditions. These conditions get worse after the first day, when flies, bees, ants and other bugs start coming and invading the food area. That’s why the labor of these man and women should not be forgotten.