We started the day with an unexpected hike down the mountain loaded up with our packs at 7:30am. Somehow we expected to have time to call a cab, but if we wanted to eat breaky before leaving, it wasn't going to happen. From there, our morning was full of unexpected little developments:
- We fortuitously bumped into Ben and Amy (Australian couple from the Barossa Valley), from our downhill biking ride, at the cafe where we had breakfast, which was great as they were also joining us for our Amazon jungle and pampas tours.
- Kyle realized during our hike into town that he had left his freshly washed Red Sox hat behind at lunch yesterday. Unfortunately, it was gone for good.
- The town looked to be having a Saturday morning rally for tuberculosis awareness (later we discovered it was actually "Fete del Nino" or "Festival of the Child") and all the streets into town were blocked off. We were left wondering where we would get our pickup.
- Our pickup arrived, 40 minutes late (it was on "Bolivian time"). He briefly said hello, and threw us all in a cab. Not knowing where we were going or how long it would take to get there, we were a bit surprised to be driving on a road nearly as bad as "The World's Most Dangerous Road" for 2 hours.
- I, of course, got really carsick during the above ride and had to force myself to sleep to keep from vomiting.
- When we finally arrived at a town, Caranavi, the driver pulled over, handed us our luggage and pointed at the bus station. OK. Hmm, I didn't think there was a bus involved with this. But he gave us a very vague indication that our group would meet us here, so we just had to sit in the grungy bus terminal and wait.
- After waiting for 40 minutes, we decided it best to call the tour office to get the scoop. They said that the rest of the group were in a restaurant just around the corner and would be right over to pick us up.
- Another 30 minutes later, the SAME taxi driver came back to direct us to a restaurant approximately 20 meters away where the rest of the group was waiting... Grrr, Bolivian time. Don't worry, we'll be in for lunch once we have our decontamination shower (from the foulness of the bus terminal), thanks.
At least this time, I had enough foresight to put on my anti-nausea wristbands and open all the windows. This meant that we were all covered in a layer of dust and dirt but at least no one was vomiting.
Apparently, our surprises weren't quite done either. One (of the many) sharp curves in the road had a big tractor trailer, filled with toilet paper (Note last blog - Cocaine manufacturing materials?), completely bogged in the mud (from the rain we had yesterday). So anyone that wanted to pass, had to take an alternative route, cutting the corner, and also help push out cars/buses that were attempting to use this makeshift bypass. This could be bad, really bad...
Hanging out with Ben and Amy, hoping to get out of this mess today.
Fortunately, it seemed that our luck was changing. It only took 20 minutes and 10 guys to get the first car pushed out, allowing one more car through before having to push our shuttle out of the mud. It got out without too much trouble, and we were on our way again.
Before long, we had loaded all our stuff onto a river boat and were heading down the Rio Alto Beni, one of the tributaries of the Amazon River. It was a beautiful 3 hour ride on the boat to our deserted riverside campsite. How refreshing to be out in the middle of nowhere and with no one else around but the 8 people in our group and our guides. Really peaceful.
Our group heading down the river.
We gathered firewood while our cook made some fantastic BBQ chicken. Then we all sat around the fire chatting, kind of wishing that we had a couple beers with us, until it started sprinkling and we all ran for our tents. The camping seemed like a great idea until the idea of wet backpacks forced us to close up our tents for the night. Within minutes, the sweat was absolutely pouring off the both of us. It wasn't particularly hot, but the humidity was unbelievable!!
Amy making friends with a local girl.
Just a little of the gold panning machinery along the river.
I think Ivan, our guide intended for us to play volleyball or soccer with the locals while lunch was being cooked but, in the midday heat and with 100% humidity, none of us were very keen to leave our cool spot in the shade of a big tree.
The jungle walk into our campsite.
Sweating under a big tree.
After a lunch that began with hot soup (are they trying to kill us??), we decided that the smartest thing to do was head down to the river. After Ivan assured us that there were no piranha in it, we quickly changed into our bathers and jumped in! The current was incredibly strong and we were warned not to swim out for fear of being swept downstream, so we just held onto rocks and floated in the current. Very refreshing!!
The locals getting around about town.
After our dip, we did both a very sweaty afternoon jungle hike and a one hour night hike.
The afternoon hike gave us the opportunity to learn a bit about the jungle vegetation. We saw massive, tympanic trees that the locals would use to make signals if they were lost in the jungle. Another tree, that I can't remember the name of, the natives used the poisonous sap on their arrows for hunting as well as put in the river for easy fishing - the fish just float to the top(!!)
First of all.... is this the same river we just went swimming in?? And secondly, that doesn't sound very eco-friendly. Couldn't you just use some, I don't know, fishing poles or big nets (that accidentally catch all the dolphins) instead?
A tree covered in termite nests and the tree filled with poisonous sap.
One of the "walking trees" that you can hide inside if a wild boat is chasing you, and one of the tympanic "I'm lost" trees - you signal distress by tapping the roots.
Ivan showing us how to climb the vines up one of the biggest trees. Legend has it that you don't want to sleep near this one as it's where the goblins congregate in the middle of the night.
We then tried our hand at fishing for piranhas the old-fashioned way... with reel and line. It was hot and sticky and, if the pond wasn't filled with piranha and very manky looking, we would have all been in there in a flash. After Ivan cut up chunks of raw meat, we got to it. Unfortunately, most of us weren't very lucky, but Kyle and Ben managed to catch one each - interesting as Ivan had said before that the Australians are "always the best fishermen". Good job boys.
Our bait - raw meat.
Everyone giving it a try.
Kyle concentrating hard and then the moment of truth.
I had pretty terrible luck, so other than the fish eating all the meat off my hook, I got nothing. So, I appreciated the other wildlife. I was enthralled with the hundreds of tiny frogs that were hopping around. I have never seen frogs so small. But they were everywhere. Very little and difficult to capture on film properly. Val would have been in hysterics!
The best thing about the night hike is that it's when the animals are all quite active. We didn't see any animals during the day but managed to see lots of things in the evening.... the biggest ant hill I've ever seen, complete with a very long line of ants marching in carrying leaves and whatever else they could find. We also saw some cool tarantulas with lots of babies, tree frogs and millipedes.
Some of the many animals that we came across in the jungle.
After a somewhat restless, sweaty sleep on rock-solid ground with huge tarantulas with tarantula babies running around outside, we didn't sleep very well. But we dragged ourselves out of our sleeping bags and got ready for another jungle hike the following day.
We took the boat further down river, then headed into the jungle (Hoon-glay as the Bolivians say it) at Madidi National Park. After crossing a small river while balancing across a log, (I can't believe that I didn't fall in!) we did a 3 hour walk through the jungle.
Balancing my way across the stream.
Making our way into the thick of the jungle.
We saw some amazing things......... We managed to sneak through quietly enough to locate a whole clan of wild boar. When I saw a clan, I mean A LOT! Ivan thought maybe 300 or 400 boars. We squatted down and inched along through the mud for a better look. That's when we got a sneak peek of their tusks and after hearing about they way they can attack, I started scouting for the nearest tree that I could climb, just in case. Very cool to see though.
A wild boar...
...and the herd's "sty". Stinky! (One of the guides said that they eat the mud to help clear some system of intestinal parasites, then poo it out, and eat it again and again. Yum!)
But let me tell you, they stink!! I'm not kidding that it kind of smells like rotten pork. Mmm, sausages... :(
That smells bad, really bad.
As we were making our return trip, the skies opened up and the storm, that had been threatening for the last couple of days, finally hit!
Initially, it was fantastic for a bit of a cool off, however, as we got on the boat and started our 3 hour ride to Rurrenabaque, where we were going to meet up with our Pampas tour, we started to feel something that we hadn't experienced for most of the tour - cold.
We were smiling but we were soaking wet and freezing. I guess that teaches us for complaining about how hot and sweaty we were.
We had lunch on the boat and the captain had spent his time productively last night and caught a huge catfish, which we would be having for lunch... Ummm, considering that fish isn't high on my list of preferred foods, and this thing looked like it had been sent from Mars, I passed on the fish.
The scary-looking catfish that one of the guys caught for our lunch. I'm trying to be brave about eating fish, but I think I'm going to have to pass.
Despite the weather, we got to Rurrenbaque relatively OK and found a hostel to stay in where we had some fantastic HOT showers and cleaned off the grunge of the past 3 days, camping in the Amazon. We headed out for pizza and beers that night with the rest of the group at the "Monkey Bar", a great way to finish our jungle tour!
The next day we were up relatively early to start our Pampas tour - literally "grasslands" however the definition of "grass" in the Amazon takes on a bit of new meaning.
Ben, Amy and Mirva (from Finland), all from our jungle tour were joining us for this and we had a 3 hour drive out to meet the boats, which would take us a further 3 hours down the River Yacuma to our campsite.
The incredibly muddy roads that almost prevented us from making it to the boat launch. I'm glad that we had 4WD in our dodgy truck!
The Pampas differs from the jungle mainly by having a lot less trees, however it also means that you have a lot more opportunity to see wildlife. We saw huge amounts of water fowl, caimans (like alligators - don't ask what the difference is), huge rodent-like creatures (can't remember what these are called either), monkeys and glimpses (usually just a splash) of pink river dolphins.
Happy to be out of the dusty truck and back on the water.
Probably not the most eco-friendly thing to do, but letting the squirrel monkeys crawl up our hands and arms to eat bananas was really cool!
The squirrel monkey colony, by the river side.
A howler monkey and baby that we saw climbing around.
Our campsite was pretty basic, however after tents, with real beds and mossie nets, it felt pretty good to us.
Our sleeping cabins and the "lounge area".
The dining room.
After we arrived at camp, we got our first glimpse of their "pet caiman". Apparently, it's normal around here to have a 14+ foot caiman just hanging around, waiting for dinner scraps.
We got back on the boat for a few minutes and arrived at the Sunset Bar up the river where we had a few beers and watched the sun go down.
Then we got back on the river to do some twilight "caiman" spotting. We basically had our head torches and shined them into the darkness on either side of the river - the caimans can be easily spotted by their eyes glowing in the dark...spooky but lots of fun! (I was really good at it... maybe it's a retirement option for me.)
The red dots in the river - the light reflecting off the caimans' eyes.
During all our time on the rivers, we saw an abundant amount of wildlife. Of course, I have forgotten many of the names... but I still have the pictures!
The biggest rodent in the world! They remind me of mini-hippos!
A few of my favorite tortugas (tortoises).
And birds, birds everywhere!
A kingfisher.
A pair of cardinals.
A tree full of eagles.
An old, tame jabiru (yep, they call them jabirus here as well!)
A selection of the other animals that we saw along the way...
And my favorite red flowers for good measure.
The ride out to the pampas.
I'm terrified, but I kind of like the outfit!
Domingo, the snake hunter, giving us a snake hunting debrief.
And we're going in...
I don't know about this...
"Unfortunately", we didn't see any snakes at all (Whew!). I wonder if it was because I was stomping my feet to scare them away...hard to say. Either way, our guide Domingo dropped us off at a tree, the only landmark in the middle of the enormous pampas, and went off snake hunting on his own. After 20 minutes and no sign of Domingo, we were starting to wonder whether he would be coming back at all! Personally, I started to wonder if he put us out there as bait...
Ah yes, looking good. I wonder if we look tasty to anacondas?
After resigning ourselves to the fact that we weren't actually going to have any run-ins with any huge snakes, we walked through the stickiest, deep mud I've ever seen. It was by far the hardest part of the walk - like trying to walk through concrete.
I'm so glad that we have rubber boots on!
Later on in the afternoon, we went back to the same spot to try to swim with the dolphins again. There were a couple around and, when Domingo threw a plastic coke bottle in the water, one came along to play with it. Kyle, Amy and I all jumped in to try to get a bit closer to the dolphins. The water was a bit chillier than I thought and incredibly murky (you couldn't see more than a foot down!). So when we were all out in the middle treading water and one of the dolphins came up behind me and bumped my shoulder, I yelped! It scared the bejesus out of me and, considering how keen I was "to ride them like we were at Sea World", I chickened out pretty quickly and stuck close to the boat after that. I guess they are not EXACTLY like Flipper.
One of the brief glimpses we had of the dolphins - quite different from sea dolphins.
Afterwards, we stopped off at a campground where some of the boys played soccer while the ladies played with some newborn little kitties.
An interesting doscovery that we made in the boat. We think it's the infamous "penis fish". Did anyone see that episode of Grey's Anatomy where they talked about the Amazonian fish that swims up the stream of urine and lodges itself in the penis?? Good thing that none of the boys peed in the water while swimming. Doesn't look like fun!
The next day was the end of our tour, but not before we had a relaxing morning fishing for piranha. Our first fishing experience in the jungle was fairly uneventful, as only Kyle and Ben caught fish. But this time, we were on fire!! There are three types of piranha: yellow, white and red and I managed to catch a big white one (the only one, the rest we caught were yellow). Kyle ended up catching 2 big ones. All up, as a group, we caught 13 of the little nibblers (our guide caught about 6 of these) and we were looking forward to an interesting lunch...
Mmmm...freshly caught man-eater!
After a little laying around in the hammocks, and having our last snuggles with the pet caiman, we took the boat 2 hours back downstream and made our way back down the, now, very dusty road back to Rurrenabaque.
Our last night in Rurrenabaque was spent going out for a few last colorful drinks at the Monkey Bar then out for a tasty dinner with Ben & Amy. A great end to a great adventure.
The famous "anti-Da Vinci Code" banana bread man in Rurre, the sign at the top left of his cart says "The Da Vinci Code is Ridiculous"!
One of the chicken stands in town. Just a good example of how you buy your goods here.
The next morning, we were up for the first flight back to La Paz. As the airport is very small and the runway is just dirt and grass, flights are regularly cancelled after just a sprinkle or light breeze. By booking the first flight of the day, we had a better chance of getting out today.
It was looking good when our plane landed about 20 minutes before take off, so we all got on board and crossed our fingers. While it's not the smallest plane I've ever been on, it is certainly the bumpiest taxi down the runway ever. Sweaty palms may not accurately describe it, but luck was with us and we had an uneventful 45 minute flight back to La Paz.
Sunrise at the airport.
Our plane arriving on the dirt landing strip.
Our view of the cockpit...
I'm so, so happy that we sprang for the flight instead of the cheaper, 13-18 hour drive back! (Yes, that's right... 13-18 hours. When you're roads are like they are in Bolivia, a little weather can make a lot of difference in travel time.)
Back in La Paz, we took some time to swap our gear over at the Adventure Brew (we had left some stuff behind), to prepare for a complete change of surroundings in Bolivia's high-altitude salars!
Back in La Paz, we took some time to swap our gear over at the Adventure Brew (we had left some stuff behind), to prepare for a complete change of surroundings in Bolivia's high-altitude salars!
