Bolivia's Amazon frontier — Madre de Dios river, pink dolphins, and the triple-border with Brazil and Peru
Cobija is the capital of Pando Department — Bolivia's smallest, least populated, and most remote administrative region, entirely covered in tropical Amazon rainforest. The city sits on the Acre River across from the Brazilian state of Acre (the town of Brasiléia is directly across the bridge), making it a genuine Amazonian border town unlike any other Bolivian city. The surrounding jungle contains intact primary Amazon forest, pink river dolphins in the Madre de Dios and Tahuamanu rivers, and excellent wildlife observation in untouched riparian zones. Cobija's population is a mix of Tacana an…
Cobija's history is inseparable from the rubber boom that transformed the western Amazon between 1880 and 1912. The Bolivian Acre Territory — the rubber-rich region that is now the Brazilian state of Acre — was effectively lost in the 1903 Treaty of Petrópolis after Brazilian rubber baron settlers staged a revolt (the Acre Conflict, 1899–1903). Bolivia received USD 2 million and a railway promise in exchange for 191,000 km² of Amazon territory. Cobija was founded as Puerto Cobija in 1906 in the rump territory that remained Bolivian — the region has been marginal to national development ever s…