Aguas de Vida…“waters of life”

Taken at Puerto Varador, 13km from Trinidad, the capital of the Beni region of Bolivia.

The summer rains fill the river once again, bringing life back to Puerto Varador.

I was there just a few weeks ago and, before the rains started, you could drive across the dry riverbed in the car. There was nobody about either apart from some cowboys getting well and truly blootered at the local bar.

Now the river is full of water and full of life. As I arrived at the banks this evening, boats and canoes were busy ferrying people and goods back and forth, cumbia music was being played loudly, house boats buzzed with activity and hoards of children played in the water.

To take the photo I went down one of the tracks which allow cars and trucks to be transported across by pontones (river boats) such as in the image.

Nikon D5000 with Sigma 10-20mm lens @11.5mm

tripod, cable release, ND4 grad filter, f25, ISO 200, 1.6 sec

Single image, converted into 3 exposures via RAW (-1, 0, +1), tone mapping in Photomatix, additional editing in Photoshop Elements 8