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When we learned that our flight to Rurrenabaque was to be canceled for the third time, we lost patience and decided to take the much longer and also adventurous bus ride there. Distances or rather driving times are mind boggling in Bolivia. A bus ride to Rurrenabaque generally takes 18 hours, while flying the same distance takes just 30 minutes. Well, in our instance, it took 33 hours to get there. The journey was truly spectacular, taking us first through high mountains and later, as we descended into the river valley, through the jungle. The road we took was declared as the most dangerous road in the world, claiming lives of dozens people every year. It is narrow, windy, and overused. As we entered deeper in the jungle, it was obvious why the flights had been canceled - the road was muddy and for much of the trip it still rained. Miraculously, our bus was handling the terrain quite well. Not for too long, though.
At midnight, just as we were falling asleep, we hit an obstacle on the road, perhaps a large rock, and got stuck in the mud. Todos afuera! Everybody out of the bus. It was
raining and most of us on the bus, including women with small children, only had light cloth on and so we were soaked thoroughly within minutes. The bus driver and his helpers started digging holes around the tires to get us out of the mess. At that point we thought that they knew what they were doing and so we just hung around waiting for them to get us out of there. But soon we realized that digging was the only thing they knew and unfortunately in this instance it only made us sink deeper in the mud. The more they dug, the more we were stuck and soon half of the bus slipped off the road and was dangerously leaning down into the jungle slope.
It was 1 am when suddenly only the gringos were left standing outside in the rain. Where did all Bolivians go? We soon learned that most of them were hiding on the bus, but curiously, an older lady sitting in the driver’s seat prevented us from entering the bus. She was ferocious! Apparently, if more people got on, the bus would slip off the road. But why just the gringos? We finally managed
to get at least the women on the board and went looking for rest of Bolivians. Where the heck did they go? Looking for help? No. They were all hiding underneath a lorry, squatting in the mud, waiting for the sun to come out. Quien es el jefe aqui, we asked. (Who is the boss here). No response. Quien es el chofer? Who is the driver? Finally one of them stepped out to talk to us. After five minutes of hard negotiation we agreed that we will give it another try to get the bus moving. We had several Israelis just freshly out of military service and Brian, an American soldier, with us so there was a chance we would collectively figure something out. We gathered the biggest rocks we could find and put them around the wheels to stabilize them. Go! The bus started slipping again. By then, it was a lost case, with the holes dug everywhere and the bus hopelessly hanging from the road. It was too dangerous to do anything further. Finally, the lady let us on the bus in appreciation of our effort to get the bus going, even as her own men were cowardly
hiding under the truck.
By the time we woke up, there were already dozens of trucks lined up in both directions, waiting for us to clear the road. It was quite a spectacle as everybody gathered around the bus, giving us advice how to get out of the mess. It took 6 more hours and two massive trucks to pull us out. Good thing there were orange plantations nearby! Nick and I went off to explore them and came back with pockets full of this delicious fruit. What a feast. Apparently, the farmers can make a good business here. You can by a 20-hectare tract of land for just $5,000, field large enough to produce 30,000 kilo of oranges per year. At $.5 per kilo, this translates to $15,000 per year in sales. With only a limited or no use of fertilization or pesticides they don’t have hardly any hard expenses, and so the farmers can make a decent living here. But who would want to live in the jungle, 15 hours from closest civilization?
At noon, after 6 hours of constant digging and pulling, we were finally on the road again. As we drove off, the scenery
again was spectacular, gradually changing from mountain jungle to the pampas and jungle plains, wilderness only occasionally interrupted by small villages and drug police checkpoints. I had some of the best bananas here, just freshly cut from the trees, but that’s as far as I went with experimenting with local food. Late at night we finally arrived at Rurrenabaque, booked a tour for the next morning, and went to bed.
The town looked quite nice actually, obviously benefiting from the surge of tourist activity, with cobble stone streets, decent restaurants, and dozens tourist agencies. We chose Anaconda Tours, a well established agency, to take us to the Pampas for three days. What a steal! $60 for 3 days, including full board and accommodation in their floating hotel. Bolivia is extremely affordable, if you have stomach for it. Together with 6 other tourists (Brian from California, Abie from the UK, Katie from the UK, Tom from Germany, Rafa from Switzerland, and Mauricio from Colombia) we were stuffed into a Toyota 4x4 and were transported to the Parque National Rio Yacuma, a natural sanctuary of pink dolphin. There we already had a boat awaiting us. We moved upstream in the river
beautifully meandering through lush forests full of monkeys, birds, turtles, and Caymans. Supposedly, anacondas and jaguars can be sighted there as well but we did not have that much luck to see them. Second day we walked through the jungle to search for snakes, in the afternoon had a swim in the river with the dolphins, and in the evening did piranha fishing. We did catch couple of these ferocious fish, but not enough to make a dinner for everyone. The last day more swimming and fishing and in the afternoon heading back to Rurrenabaque. By then, I had enough of the jungle (my stomach was again not very happy with the cuisine), and I was quite happy to hop on the flight to La Paz. In just 30 minutes, we were transported from the jungle in just 200 m above sea level to La Paz sitting at 3500 meters.
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