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Published: April 29th 2008
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Alligator
At least I think this was an alligator, not a caiman When I tried and failed to go swimming with dolphins in New Zealand, I never realised that I would actually get to do it in Bolivia, of all places. I didn't even know there were dolphins anywhere near the country - after all, it is landlocked. But there are pink dolphins in two rivers in Bolivia, one of them being the river Yacuma, where I spent three days in the pampas near Rurrenabaque.
Before I could even think about swimming with dolphins, I had to get to Rurrenabaque. The sensible thing to have done was fly there. But, having made it as far as Coroico, I didn't want to backtrack to La Paz so I decided to get the bus. It can't be that bad, surely? Yes it was. It easily rates as the worst - and most terrifying - bus journey I've ever been on. To start with, the road is basically a continuation of the 'Death Road', only maybe not quite as narrow. Still with a dizzying and bloody frightening drop at the side of the road. As with the death road, the rules are reversed so you drive on the left - presumably so that the driver
can see how close he is to the edge of the road. My seat was also on the left. I was torn between not wanting to look at the precipitous drop, and staring fixedly at the bottom, thinking 'Ohmygod, I'm going to die!'. Thankfully, however, I didn't. After some time, the road got lower and less winding, and we just went bump, bump, bump, bump for the rest of the journey (roads around these parts are never paved, and always full of stones and ruts) before finally arriving in Rurrenabaque at 4.30am. I've never been so glad to get somewhere in my life.
Having made it to Rurrenabaque, I headed out for the aforementioned trip to the pampas. The first part of the journey involved three bum-numbing hours bouncing around in the back of a jeep, to the small town of Santa Rosa. From there we swapped to a motor boat to take us to our camp. And there the fun started. The whole point of the trip is to see wildlife and basically surround yourself with nature. Within five minutes of getting in the boat we'd already seen so much...in the two hours it took to get to
Capybara
The world's largest rodent - or, as someone put it, a science experiment gone wrong the camp, we saw monkeys, turtles, caiman, capybara, alligators, dolphins, and loads of amazing birds. It was fantastic! We were surrounded by even more wildlife from our camp, right by the river edge. Lying in the hammocks, we could watch dolphins swim by and birds fly over head...although at one point, nature got worryingly close as a caiman decided that right by our camp was the ideal spot for cooling off. Thankfully, he didn't get any closer.
As well as watching the wildlife from the boat and from the hammocks, we also went out actively looking for it. The second morning was spent searching fruitlessly for anacondas. To do this, we had to wade through at times knee-deep water. The area we were looking in is usually a river during the wet season, although by now the water levels have dropped considerably. It was hard work, as it was incredibly hot, so a few of us abandoned the search for anacondas and found a tree to shelter under. As it turned out, we needn't have bothered wasting so much effort as someone spotted an anaconda by the side of the road on the way back to Rurrenabaque!
The
aforementioned dolphin swimming happened in the afternoon following the anaconda search. I'd seen dolphins swimming in the river, but they never seemed to stay in one place for long so I had no idea how we were going to swim with them. But our guide, Domingo, took us to a natural pool in the river, where we found a number of dolphins swimming happily around. They just such beautiful creatures...if you've read my blog from New Zealand, you'll know I've actually tried and failed to swim with dolphins three times before. So I was so happy to finally get to do it. Although to be fair, I wouldn't say we swam
with the dolphins, more in the general proximity of dolphins. They were a little nervous of us being in the water, so they swam away. But they came back and swam around the boat when we had the motor running - Domingo said that they were attracted by the sound of the motor in the water. Unfortunately dolphins aren't the easiest of creatures to photograph (they don't stay above water for long enough) so I don't have any photos.
After three days in such beautiful and peaceful surroundings,
not to mention all those creatures, it was hard to go back to reality. On the way back (this time in an even more bum-numbing minivan...soooo not designed for Bolivian roads) we saw a sloth as well as the anaconda I mentioned earlier. After a much needed shower and a night's rest to Rurrenabaque, it was time to head back to La Paz....and yes, this time I flew.
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