Our Story
Our Story
The ecolodge is located in a natural sanctuary beautifully preserved thanks to the traditional philosophy of respecting the nature, prohibiting hunting and commercial deforestation. During your stay you’ll be accompanied with persons that share your love for adventure, nature and cultural diversity.
Our Story
The indigenous community of San José de Uchupiamonas, had to face its own development at the beginning of the 1990s, due to the difficult situation of poverty and the lack of attention of the central government in health, education, basic services and access, causing in the 1980s the migration of 40 families from our community in search of better living conditions. This difficult situation made us think that we would never have government help, let alone think about a loan, so we were forced to face our own development and for that we thought about creating our own project, whose main objective is to improve the living conditions of our population. At that time it was only a dream due to the lack of solvent guarantees for the banks. Thus, from the 90s, many of us began to question ourselves about: How do we avoid the disappearance of our community? How do we create alternative jobs and improve the living conditions of our residents? Looking at the heritage so valuable that our ancestors left us: forests, animals, rivers and lakes, WE THINK ABOUT ECOLOGICAL TOURISM. The initiative was given and the task of saving our culture and territory was in the hands of a generation that fought hard. Our idea was to build traditional tacana rustic cabins on the banks of the magical Laguna Chalalán.
Origin of the name Chalalan
It is said that the name CHALALÁN, has its origin as a result of a shipwreck suffered by a group of Josesanos hunters in the Tuíchi River, very close to the lagoon, during which it is said that it was the fall of a plate of iron enlozado, which When it hit the stones of the river, it produced the sound? CHA-LA-LÁN ". Other settlers, on the other hand, say that it was an "anta" (terrestrial Tapirus) who, when passing through a provisional camp very close to the lagoon, attacked some plates enlozados iron and caused a noise? CHALALÁN ?. Since then, the lagoon has been called CHALALÁN, and because the lodge was built on the banks of the lagoon, now the Ecological Lodge and the company have the name of Chalalán. The Chalalán lagoon is a magical place, where the visitor is filled with energy from the jungle, which is not only inhabited by animals and plants, but is also protected by tutelary beings from the "jichi" forest that take care of the site. life and ensuring its reproduction.
How we started
So we started the CHALALÁN Project on February 28, 1992, without economic resources, but with faith and hope to forge a better future for our children. On the way we met many Bolivian, Dutch, Norwegian and American friends, who were in solidarity with our cause, among them were Oscar Sainz and Joseph Ginsgber, this last Israeli citizen, who expressed his gratitude to our community, in relation to his rescue in the valley of the Tuíchi, who in his note of 12/23/92, said: "I will never forget and to my gratitude in this respect, I want to say that I was originally born in Israel, but I feel that I was born again on the beaches of Progreso near San José and I feel Bolivian, Camba and it would be an honor to be a Josesano. " In gratitude to that feeling, he began the search for economic resources to give a greater impetus to the community project, in that effort, together with representatives of our community, managed to contact the representatives of Conservation International (CI) and finally through of them, contact was made with the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB). The project was underway and the search for financial resources was also needed, but more support was needed, for which it was necessary to visit the Vice President of Conservation International for Latin America, Mr. James D. Nations, who wrote about his visit to San Jose de Uchupiamonas, expressed the following: "In all my professional life I have not found so much preservation ethic, so much respect and affection for life and so kind and respectful people, until today I can not forget that moment". His visit was very positive for our community, because his feelings of solidarity made Conservation International Washington, provide all their support in adapting the project and take the necessary steps before the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), which fortunately ended with the signing of the non-reimbursable technical cooperation agreement "ATN / ME-4757-BO for the Sustainable Development and Ecotourism Program in San José de Uchupiamonas" in 1995 and with it the establishment of a protection zone for the proposed Madidi National Park, with resources of the Multilateral Investment Fund FOMIN. Had it not taken prompt and accurate decisions, the disappearance of our community (culture and territory) would have been irreversible.