Mapiri

Mapiri is a country town in the department of La Paz in the South American Andes State of Bolivia.

Location in near space

Mapiri is the central place of the district ( bolivian: Municipio) Mapiri in the province Larecaja. The village lies at an altitude of 635 m on the right bank of the Río Mapiri, where " Mapiri " in the language of Matsiguenga - Ashaninka ( mapi = stone) is used as a designation for rivers whose river bed consists of boulders and rocks.

Geography

Mapiri located northeast of Lake Titicaca on the eastern edge of the Andes mountain range of the Cordillera Real in the lowlands of the Río Beni, one of the major rivers of the Amazon lowlands.

The mean average temperature of the region is over 23 ° C (see climate chart ), the annual precipitation is just under 1400 mm. The region has a slightly pronounced temperature profile on the monthly average temperatures vary only slightly between 21 ° C in June and July and nearly 28 ° C in November and December, and the day and night temperatures have only small fluctuations. The monthly rainfall range from less than 50 mm in the months of June and July and over 200 mm in December.

Traffic network

Mapiri lies at a distance of 328 kilometers of road north of La Paz, the capital of the department of the same name.

From La Paz, the partially paved highway Route 3 leads in a northeasterly direction over 160 km Cotapata to Caranavi, then branches off the unpaved Ruta 25 from which further leads reached after 70 kilometers Guanay and Mapiri by Apolo. The slope between Guanay and Mapiri is passable with a journey time of only 3-4 hours in the dry season from May to September. According to the southwest consists of Mapiri from a dirt road connection to the 17 km distant Santa Rosa, about 11 hours away Sorata town can be reached.

Population

The population of the town has risen in the past two decades by about a fifth:

The village is mainly inhabited by Aymara immigrants. Besides two hostels overnight at the Alojamiento Plaza, the place has a few small restaurants, a few shops and a ENTEL telephone office to offer.

Río Mapiri

The Río Mapiri rises in the valley of the Desaguadero west of the mountain range of Illampú. In Guanay the Mapiri combined with the Challana and the Tipuani. By attracting the alluvial gold dust from river sands of the Mapiri the river is today highly poisoned by mercury, so that water birds and fish have become rare.

Economy

Mapiri - a scaled-down version of the nearby Guanay - is determined by the gold mining in the Rio Mapiri. Even from the times of the Incas is reported discovery of gold in Rio Mapiri and in the Río Tipuani. After the conquest of the continent by Europeans, the Spaniards subdued the local population along this Yungas rivers and committed them to forced labor. In the 19th century the sap of rubber trees have been used extensively for the production of rubber along the Río Mapiri. Today, everywhere along the river small gold mining equipment, although major finds have been not done since the 1980s. A claim along the river provides today rarely more than gold to the equivalent of 10 U.S. dollars. The leading of Sorata after Mapiri Camino de Mapiri additionally brings a manageable number of trekking tourists in the place.