Originally published in Outpost Magazine

The muddy water rushing beneath me gives a sense of exhilaration that one doesn't normally experience while sitting on the toilet. It's a western-looking toilet, but on closer examination, it's made of planks of wood, loosely secured over a hole that empties into the river. For a moment, I wonder what it would be like to slip in, but immediately refuse to entertain the thought. It's the fourth and final day of going up the Rio Mamore with the Bolivian nave in a vessel that looks more like a souped up tugboat with two barges attached to the bow than anything remotely associated with the word navy.

Not surprisingly, the Bolivian navy's existence is a precariousness thing. This landlocked nation lost its Pacific coastline during a war with Chile between 1879 adn 1883, and they've been trying to get it back ever since. At the January 2004 Latin American Summit in Mexico, Bolivia made the argument that it needed access to the sea for an easier route to world markets and to escape centuries of poverty. Chile, meanwhile, has offered Bolivia tax-free use of ports but refuses to give up sovereignty. Unhappy and confined indefinitely to inland waterways, the navy shares Bolivia's rivers and lakes with a motley collection of cargo boats.

We had to deal with The Man to get aboard. Leaning against a sun-bleached telephone pole, dressed in military uniform, a Marlboro dangling from his lips and a rifle slung absently from his shoulder, he already had us beat before we began the negotiation. It was a scene cut from Clint Eastwood's gun-slinging days minus the tumbleweed. Eyeing us up as we approached, ready to bargain our way up the river, he muttered, "Leaving in one hour. Two hundred - final>" We took it because we needed the ride to our destination - Guayaramerin, resting on the border between Bolivia and Brazil.

Furnished with nothing except two hard bunk beds and hooks in the ceiling to hang our mosquito netting, we cruise our way up the Rio Mamore, with stops in villages beyond the reach of typical travel. Despite first impressions, every day we sat with our new friends and had fresh cooked meals, read and watched river dolphins follow in our wake. When we are about to reach Guayaramerin, listining to the ever-present roar of the engines, feeling the rush of the river beneath me, I look out the port window and see monkeys swinging and birds resting. Despite teh bites and bruises, and the almighty mosquito gnawing at my calves, I can't complain. After all, with the Bolivian navy you travel first class.