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Published: November 20th 2007
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To get to the Western Bolivian Amazon and the town of Rurrenabaque, you can either a) take a 20 hour (if its not raining) bus ride on a dirt road or b) a 40 minute flight. We opted for the flight. Often flights to Rurrenabaque are cancelled due to poor weather and then all the other flights are pushed back for hours or days to fit in the cancelled flights. We met quite a few people in La Paz who were waiting for their flights to be re-scheduled.
Luckily our flight to Rurre took off as planned. And the excitement didn't end there. We were flying in a 15 passenger propeller plane over the Andes and their wind gusts and when we got to Rurre...we landed on a grass landing strip. It was a little nerve-wracking, but it all went over without a hitch.
That same day, we joined a tour group, with Bala Tours, and headed out for the pampas. From Rurre, most travelers choose to either do a jungle tour or a pampas tour. We decided on the pampas (a savannah like area) because the reviews we read said that the chances of seeing wildlife were much
higher.
We feel we need to insert something here about Ryan. Ryan met up with us with a completely open mind and was ready to tackle anything we had planned--in his white nikes, blue jeans, electronic spanish-english translator, and L.L. Bean high school backpack in tow.
Our first tour started with a three and a half hour jeep ride over a rutted, muddy jeep track that dumped us at a riverbank. We then loaded into a small boat and rode a few minutes up river and arrived at our home for the next 3 days.
Our tour was essentially like summer camp, without the singing, crafts and awkward adolescents. We slept in cabins with mosquito netting over the beds, took cold showers and ate meals as a group in the dining hall. At Camp Bala, we split up into small groups and went out in the boats in search of animals.
Our expectations were far surpassed. We saw countless caimans, alligators, and birds. One animal that fascinated us, the capybara, a large mammal that resemmbled an enourmous hamster with webbed feet. The second day on the boat the sun was shining which meant all the alligators
PRETTY BIRD
sorry, we don´t remember any of the names were laying on the shore, as opposed to underwater. We also found a tree full of curious squirrel monkeys and saw small groups of pink river dolphins.
The guide, Robby, seemed to get great pleasue out of scaring Ryan while we were in the boat. He would pull up really close to a lounging caiman or gator, all the while Ryan telling him we were close enough. Then the caiman would lunge into the water with a big splash and everyone would jump, thinking the big gator was going to take the boat under and have a delicious lunch of white meat (not chicken). Robby probably did this about 75 times while we were there and he got a kick out it everytime!
Later that afternoon we went fishing for piranhas. Not really sure why that was on the itinerary, but we did it. Brett was the only one of the three of us to catch one. At night, we took the boat out to see the very creepy glow of the alligator eyes, which were everywhere we shined the flashlights.
On the third morning we went on a walk in seach of anacondas and successfully spotted
ALLIGATOR
up close and personal two...the guide´s found one and Brett just happened to look into the scrub grass and spotted the other. The guides were so impressed with Bretts piranha fishing skills and his knowledge of the elusive anacondas hiding places that they offered him a job! They offered $40,000 a year, his own boat and cabin, all the piranha he could eat, and year round supplies of bug juice...nah, they just laughed at him when he said he could be a ¨guia¨with them.
Once back in Rurre, we learned that our flight had gotten pushed back until later in the evening. It was hot, and there's not much to do in Rurre, so the three of us found a pool. We drank some ice-cold beers, took a dip, relaxed and waited for our plane. We didnt catch gonorrhea but we did catch some piranhas, saw some beautiful scencery, and were scared by giant reptiles...if that sounds fun to you, then you should check out Rurrenabaque sometime.
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Steve
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Happy Turkey day
Happy Thanksgiving!!!