Rurrenabaque - Week 35

13th to 19th May

So next stop the Rainforest and Pampas. We decided to go into the rainforest proper in Bolivia as it is the easiest to access. The rainforset in Madidi National Park is supposed to be the most bio-diverse and pristine in all of South America, when compared to the rainforest in Brazil which has been subject to widespread slash and burn deforestation for decades.

So we had the option of a 20 hour bus ride along mountain precipice roads or a 45min plane ride: we took the plane ride. 40 quid well spent! James did find the plane a bit scary though. The little Amazonas plane held on 18 people and you could see right into the cockpit with lots of buzzers going off all the time. Mind you the pilots didn´t seem too worried as they seemed to spend most of the flight passing biscuits to each other! However, with views like this out of the window of the rainforest we soon forgot about the jiggly plane.

Rurrenabaque highstreet full of tour jeeps.

So as soon as we landed and found a hostel (Santa Ana - nice, fiver a night) we went to find a good deal on a jungle tour. We decided upon Flecha Tours for $20 a day as they sounded the most organised.

JUNGLE

Next morning we were heading up the Beni River in a leaky boat for 3 hours to the camp with Tomba, our guide, Fatima, our cook, Jo from Wales, the baot bloke and the two of us.

The swanky (with a silent s) camp

Sitting down for lunch, with Tomba wetting himself laughing for the tenth time that day...

Sunset fishing for Catfish using chicken and line

That night after dinner we went for a night trek into the jungle. The animals are much more active at night so we had high hopes of seeing some things. We walked along the small river behind the camp finding gruesome lookinf spiders and little frogs, until we heard some rustling in the bushes ahead of us. Tomba told us to turn of our torches and listen again. It was thought to be a deer as we found remains of half-eaten fruit but it was scared off. We carried on walking finding more spiders and thankfully none of the highly poisonous snakes, then stopped, turned our torches off again and sat listening to the sounds of the jungle for 10 minutes. It was sooo dark you couldn´t see your hand in front of your face. Lots of animal noises, insects, frogs, birds etc.


We started to walk back along the path we had came when all of a sudden we saw a pair of large orange eyes about 15m in front of us - A JAGUAR!! We saw it turn and walk away and Tomba told us to turn our lights off while he walked on to see where it went. So the three of us we left standing there in the pitch black thinking that we´d here a roar any second and get attacked from the side!! Luckily the Jaguar walked off to the look for the deer that had been eating the fruit minutes before, and we walked on with racing heartbeats.

The magnificant Jaguar.

Next morning we went on a 5 hour trek through the jungle starting along the same path we had been the night before and found Jaguar pawprints in the mud, so we weren´t dreaming! Tomba took us acrss trail through the thick undergrowth cutting a path through for us with his machete. We were worried about snakes again but luckily we saw none. We ended up at the only village in the area to see how they lived. There are 18 families growing crops in the jungle, but they have had agriculture courses from the government and so were farming in a sustainable way, rotating their land leaving areas fallow to recover.

The village was full with dirty cute kids.

The third day we went on another trek to a view point to look over the jungle in the morning mist. On the way back we went cross track with machete dodging huge tarantula webs, again no snakes - phew! After a huge lunch, 2 hours after breakfast, we headed back to Rurrenabaque with a boat full of Israeli´s from another camp. If you have spent a little time with a group of Israelis you´ll know how "fun" that boat trip was!

Katie dressed as queen of the jungle - where´s Ant & Dec?

The jungle was fantastic. Seeing a Jaguar 15m in front of us was obviously a highlight, a rare one too as they are only seen once every 20 days on average. The downside was though; no showers and a crazy amount of mosquitos. We didn't take our trousers off once for three days but they had manged to bite through the fabric and our socks even with repellant liberally sprayed!! We were definitely roughing it, but it was an amazing experience.

PAMPAS

After a well needed shower we went on the lookout for the next trip to the pampas. We had heard that Flecha Tours camp in the pampas wasn´t as nice as some of the others, and we wanted a different T-shirt! We decided to go with Fluvial Tours, for $55 for 3 days. We were very excited about the pamapas as we had been told that it was much easier to see the wildlife as they has less things to hide in!

The first part of the journey though was a 3 hour muddy and bumpy jeep ride along a terrible road. After that and some lunch at a strange place with a monkey, a parrot, ducks and a deer we arrived at the boats. It was an hour ride to the camp, and even after the first 10 mins we had see birds of paradise, eagles and pink dolphins!

An unsuccessful minibus that we had to pull out of the mud.

The boat with an international mix. 3 English, 1 Welsh, 2 Canadians, 2 Israelis and the weird Bolivian guide.

The pampas

The campsite was a bit less basic than the jungle, and the weather cooler so not showering was less of an issue! The camp did have its fair share of "pets" with a white stork type bird that hung around all the time, what eneded up being a very naughty cat (more later) and a massive alligator!!

Apparently tame-ish...

Us strangely relaxed with the alligator?

The pamapas trip is much more relaxed as there really isn´t anywhere to walk that isn´t flooded, so we just sat in the boat and were taken to see the wildlife. And what wildlife! You could get so close to everything as they couldn´t hide as easily as the jungle and didn´t seem too bothered by us. They seemed to know they were well out of reach...

There were three different types of monkey, loads and load of huge birds and eagles. Katie and I being the wildlife fanatics that we are cannot remember any of the names, but we have some pretty pictures!!

The second morning we went out on the boat again after deciding that we didn´t want to wade up to our necks in the river to try and find anacondas. Apparently they are very hard to find now when the water level is so high. In July they can be found easily when the water is much lower, and they can be up to 8m in length and capable of swallowing a cow or alligator whole - whoah! They then settle up for a month or so to digest their huge meal. So we went pirana fishing instead. We wedged the boat up into the bushes and got our hooks and line, attached a pice of bloody meat to the hook and dangled it over the side. It was a very strange sensation and you could feel the piranas biting the meat and pulling it away from you, once you felt they had taken enough of the meat you struck hoping to hook one. James failed (sorry Dad, i let the family fishing heritage down) but Katie got one, and the guide had the knack and was pulling them out easily. We were told that these red piranas are the most agressive and can strip a goat clean in minutes - we did not want to fall into the water!!

All fried up ready for eating.

fancy being nibbled by these teeth?!

Probably the highlight though were the Pink Dolphins. Now the photos i manged to take were perhaps not the best but they a shy little things and VERY difficult to take photos of. These are the best of about 50:

A borrowed one to show what they really look like.

The return jeep ride wasn´t much fun. A one point we thought it was going to break down and we´d be stranded - luckily it held on. We went out to a nice bar called Pachamamas for some nice food and to escape the ever present mossies. Then next day luckily flew back to La Paz. The plane hadn´t been able to leave for the last two days as the weather and the grass runway had been too bad. It was quite a shock coming back to the 4000m -2C coldness of La Paz after the tropical climate in Rurrenabaque. It is always one of the most fascinating things about travelling that you can be in a tropical jungle in the morning then freezing at high altitude in the afternoon.

Nevermind, next on the agenda was to bike down the worlds most dangerous road...


Books we read: Human Traces by Sebastian Faulkes - excellent, unputdownable!