The Amazon: More seasons than Melbourne, more Rambo mozzies than you can swat at, and more dodgy booking agents..... and a sloth too, finally!

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Don`t feed the monkeys !!

So after the luxury of pools and saunas, and the relaxation of a decent bed and good food, it was time again to head onwards for the next episode: Rurrenabaque. By now we know that this is spanish for "very far away".

There were some choices with regards to getting there. By plane, which would mean heading back to La Paz first, and weather forcast was rain and more rain, so no guarantee the small aircraft would be able to land on the grass pitch they call airport at Rurre. Second option was an overnight bus ride. Problem one is that you hardly see anything of course at night. Problem 2 was that we'd heard far too many stories of the bus taking more than 20hours (instead of the promissed 15), getting stuck in the mud, having punctures, or generally just breaking down. Keeping in mind as well that the seats don't recline, and are sized for small Bolivianos.


So option 3 it was, a 4WD with driver for the 3 of us, with a 10hr drive costing us US$250. A day before departure, in true bolivian style, the confirmation from us included a change in the arrangement: US$220 now, with a change of car, but same driver, still a 4wd.


So, next day, pick up on time with the big 4wd, and a 2.5 hour drive brings us to Caranavi. Funny enough, most along winding and dusty sections of the rest of the death road, but once we hit the asphalt of the town, we have a puncture! Either way, it was the change over point, so no time lost.

Driver one heads out with taxi to pick up the other car..... and the other driver... ehm, that wasn´t part of the agreement, nor was the front-wheel drive standard Toyota Corola..... Bolivia can be so much fun sometimes.

Even better !! The first thing Willy (new driver) does, is swing the car around and..... shop for 2 new tires... ?!?! ehm, what-the.... He succeeds at the 3rd shop ?! Then swings around again and finds a workshop to have them changed, "only 10 minutes" he sais.... Of course it takes longer, and Jen´s not feeling at her best yet, and we still have at least 7/8 hours of driving ahead of us......

Tire change takes over 30 mins in the end. Whilst they were at it, they rotated front and rear tires as well, so now the new tires are on the rear of the front wheel drive car. I´m sure there´s a philosophy somewhere in all of that, especially if he already knew the day before we were leaving.

For some reason I´m getting the feeling that this sort of long distance transport for tourists with taxis is paying for most of their maintenance.

So all up the drive was pretty nice, scenic, and Willy did manage to get through all the muddy sections without getting stuck. Some of these mud roads look very painful, if we´d been in a bus, who knows.....

We´d left Caranavi around noon, but didn´t make it to Rurre till after 9pm. Tired and worn from bumping around, we also find out Willy doesn´t know the town at all. out comes the Lonely Planet map. Not too hard to find the Hotel Oriental, but a mass is going on around the square, so we get stopped by police twice before being alowed to drive around it to get to the hotel.

We´re at 9pm, at approx 450m above sea level, in the Amazon area of Bolivia.... so it´s hot, still. I´m sweating bricks already, but the girls are happy to be in warm temperatures again!

The Oriental would prove to be an oasis for us here, one of the nicer hotels we´ve staid at, albeit very simple. very nice family running it too. And all of that for approx. US$12.50 per night !

The jungle tour
As we´d arrived in Rurre a few days before schedule, we decide to pull the jungle tour forward with a day. This would also give us a day´s break in between the 2 booked tours. No problem so far.

The day we head out on the boat, it starts to rain... heavily. In fact, it doesn´t stop raining all day and night, and we´re pretty wet and cold by the time we head into camp. By then, the temperature seemed to have dropped below the temperatures we´re used from La Paz !! So it´s cold, and not that enjoyable so far.

Then there´s also a bit of confusion, we thought we´d arranged private rooms in a lodge, but are assigned beds in a large shed, sorry, dorm.... and none of the accomodation could be described as basic here, run down would be closer to the truth. In the end we talk around the subject, and get a "cabin" for the 3 of us, but still, run down, with bad and dirty matrasses. The beds of the girls had at least 2 broken slats each, try that for a good night´s sleep.

After a simple but nice lunch we head out with guide Senon, a local, and thankfully a very knowledgeable and patient guide. No problems understanding his spanish explanations, which are usualy accompanied by pantomime clarifications!

Our group also included Tom (England) and Rick (USofA) and Ricks private english speaking guide: Daniel...... Daniel would turn out to be our comic relief in this rain filled adventure.

In short, Rick had "super sized" his tour with an English speaking guide, US$8 extra per day. Breaking that down, that would have been $1 for translations, $2 for comic relief, and $5 for "please can someone tell him to shut up".

Daniel was re-christened to Manuel, as in the butler from Fawlty Towers. he turned out to be pretty useless as a guide, ran around in worn down Converse sneakers (so no grip in the mud), had a cataract in one eye, so had no depth perceptions, and managed to slip down any river bank we had to go up or down, getting himself wetter and dirtier every time. he also insisted in explaining that he only used his machete as a walking stick, which was actually true, and we wouldn´t have wanted to have seen him chop at anything. Last but not least, he used to smoke and urinate within at least 5 meters of the group!!! ;-(

Anyways, for us the walks through the Jungle resembled what we´d already done in Amboro NP, including the rain. Some of the trees are still amazing though, but unfortunately the animals wisely take refuge during rainy spells, so no animal watching for us that day.

Dinner again was ok that night, plentyfull, but because of the rain, dark and cold we decided to hit the sack quite early, again.

Next day, no change, still rain, still very cold. take into account here that we´d anticipated 30-40 degree heat, in Celcius, not Fahrenheit, so needless to say we didn´t have any warm clothes on us!

Morning walk is much of the same, a bit more luck with some insects, but nothing new to report. A consensus was reached, break up and head back a day earlier than planned. So after lunch we end up walking and sliding back to the River and heading back by boat. It had stopped poorig down by then, but still, quite cold. They day later we heard from the 2 danish girls that came in that day that the weather would turn warmer and clearer, and they did get to see some animals.. the choices we make....

We do decide to head to the booking office, as some things were note quite as expected. Nothing more than glazed over eyes from their end, as said before, there´s a great need for more education in this country.

The pampas tour
In the end, after some considerations, we did decide to go on the pampas (wet lands, like the Pantanal) with the same company. Well, same company, again, but as usual you book with one, and they throw you in with any other company that has insufficient bookings, in the same basic joined lodges....

We had lowered our expectations, just in case. And to some account, when we were turned back at a tourist inspection point (11 people in one car, 2 more than the legal limit of 9), and the driver fudged his way through (and picked up the 2 other people 2kms down the road), and within half an hour changed a tire, we were not too wrong in doing so.

Some with the boats, for some mysterious reason we had to wait almost an hour again, but for nothing really in the end, so not much good so far.

But mother nature saved the day, again! Sunny and warm (but not too hot for Rene), and beautiful scenery all around. Pretty soon animals as well (go on, watch the video at the top of this story) all sorts, and the monkey feeding, even though maby not endorsed by national Geographic, was quite fun.

First refreshing swim as well for some, and also the first pink dolphins joining us !!

Camp, as expected was basic again, slightly less run down, but still. This time, in the dorm.

We head out straight again for the sunset bar, a lovely spot in the pampas, where tourists come for cold beers, and mozzies come for fresh blood!! Lots of very fresh blood! This turned out to be one of those places where even 100% deet would not save your ass, or any other (un)covered body part!

Dinner again was nice, but maybe a bit too little for a much bigger group we were in this time. There were still other groups at the lodge, who had a camp fire, and a lot of alcohol. Lots of drinking went on till the wee hours, needless to say we didn´t last that long.

Day 2, normal time to get up, and a nice breakkie. On the programme, searching for anacondas in a swamp...... somehow doesn´t sound right, but we dressed up in smashing waterproof pants, and gum boots (wellies for Ozzies). It was getting hot again, and wading through swamps, water level occasionally above the gum boot level, well, it wasn´t as good as it sounds. In the end we chose to sit around and let the searching be done by the guides. No luck, just wet socks and sweatie T shirts.

On the way back, luckily time for a relaxing swim, again, pink dolphins all around!

After lunch it was siesta time, 2 hours, only interupted by the resident Crockodile who came sunbathing..... 5meters from our hammocks ! Somehow, all of this, probably isn´t covered by travel insurance.

So later on, in the river filled with crocks, caymans, piranhas and god knows what, we head out for a swim again! Again, with the dolphins, and these lovely creatures are curious enough to come close enough to tickle feet !

Again that night, cold beers at the sunset bar, and more mozzie feeding! Again, we didn´t last that long that night, also knowing that we´d get up early for sunrise viewing!

So, up before 6am for a boat trip to see a pampas style sunrise..... outboard motor won´t start............

Any-old-how, the machinery let us down again, another little engine that couldn´t. Planned maintenance here doesn´t seem to go any further than filling up the tank.

After breakkie we pack up and head out for Piranha fishing. For some reason our guide also manages to turn it into a white water rafting event (he managed to borrow an outboard motor from the sunset bar owner). A bit of a worry, how do we get out again??

There are at least 5 boats in the same corner, badly manoeuvering around, so needless to say not a lot of fish is caught. A few though, small ones, and nothing big enough for lunch. Shame, but glad to get out early as again it was steaming up quite nicely.

So yes, we do head up the mini rapid with our long boat with the borrowed 15Horsepower (?!?!) outboard motor. Credit to our guide, we do make it. No credit to the others, as they all get stuck and we need to pull them up.

Luckily again, after the sweaty fishing, we do get a swim, again, with dolphins, can´t get enough of that!

The boat ride out was nice, again, and we´re lucky this time that we hardly have to wait for the 4WD to pick us up. Lucky as well, as we run into a capibarri family, and later even a Sloth!! It´s taken a while, but we finally managed to see one in the wild !

Back to Rurre for one more night
All up Rurre wasn´t the worst place to spend a few days. Quiet enough (apart from the last night´s drunk fireworks) and a few good restaurants and bars.

The flight out (no choice, no way we´d go back the same road) was quite "interesting" as well, a 19 seater, and possibly the smallest seating arrangement you can think of. Luckily for less than an hour, and some of that had nice scenery. Unfortunately the windows were too dirty/fogged to make for nice picture taking, but quite a fun way to get back to La Paz anyway.

We´re still counting our mozzy bites..........

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